Featured Project: Writing in Physics Labs

Writing is an integral part of the process of science. In the undergraduate physics curriculum, the most common place that students engage with scientific writing is in lab classes, typically through lab notebooks, reports, and proposals. Writing may be included in lab classes in order to help students develop communication skills, create opportunities for students to engage in authentic disciplinary practices, support social emotional experiences in the lab, facilitate learning, or to facilitate the structure and logistics of the course. Situated in the context of student-designed multiweek projects in advanced lab classes, our research investigates instructors' goals for writing, examples of implementation, and students' views about, and experiences with, writing during their lab projects.