Examining physics identity in laboratory settings through survey development

Labs have been closely tied with physics education for well over a century. In that time practitioners have struggled to take advantage of the unique opportunities provided by lab learning environments. Recently, there have been renewed calls to emphasize the practices and skills of 'doing physics' in lab courses. Physics education has struggled to utilize labs to their full potential and to assess the impacts labs have on the students. This dissertation will describe the design and implementation of an algebra-based sequence of lab courses at Michigan State University (MSU). In the course design, lab skills and practices are the central learning goals instead of content specific knowledge. We utilize the context of the newly redesigned lab courses to develop an assessment tool to measure the impact that labs are having on our students, specifically on their physics identity development. An essential aspect of developing a physics identity is the opportunity to engage in the practices that are authentic to the field of physics. From a robust understanding of students' ideas about these practices, we can get information about how they situate themselves with respect to the practices as an indicator of their physics identity. We assert that the survey development process we have undergone to produce a practice-based identity survey, has ensured that the survey accurately represents how students interpret these practices and how they identify with them. We have taken a mixed methods approach to reduce the items and overall dimensions of the survey into a fully closed-responses short form survey of 24 practice and 5 identity focused questions. This dissertation describes the process of developing the practice-based identity survey from the context and theoretical model through each iteration of the survey.