This is the second of two closely related articles (Paper I and Paper II) that together illustrate how research in physics education has helped guide the design of instruction that has proved effective in improving student understanding of atomic spectroscopy. Most of the more than 1000 students who participated in this four-year investigation were science majors enrolled in the introductory calculus-based physics course at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, WA, USA. The others included graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants at UW and physics majors in introductory and advanced physics courses at the University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia. About half of the latter group were preservice high school physics teachers. Paper I describes how several conceptual and reasoning difficulties were identified among university students as they tried to relate a discrete line spectrum to the energy levels of atoms in a light source. This second article (Paper II) illustrates how findings from this research informed the development of a tutorial that led to improvement in student understanding of atomic emission spectra.

1.
L.
Ivanjek
, “
An investigation of conceptual understanding of atomic spectra among university students
,” Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Zagreb
,
2012
.
2.
L.
Ivanjek
,
P. S.
Shaffer
,
L. C.
McDermott
,
M.
Planinic
, and
D.
Veza
, “
Research as a guide for curriculum development: An example from introductory spectroscopy. I. Identifying student difficulties with atomic emission spectra
,”
Am. J. Phys.
83
(
1
),
85
90
(
2015
).
3.

During our investigation, we also identified student difficulties directly related to the experimental equipment used to produce and observe emission line spectra. These complications and the development of a tutorial to addresses them will be discussed in a future article.

4.
L. C.
McDermott
,
P. S.
Shaffer
, and
the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington
,
Tutorials in Introductory Physics
, 1st ed. (
Prentice Hall
,
Upper Saddle River, NJ
,
2002
); Instructor's Guide (2003). (A Preliminary Edition was published in 1998; a Second Edition will be available in 2014.); The Second Edition will include the tutorial Atomic spectra.
5.

For example, some students treated all the shades of green as a single distinct color. They then said that the number of energy levels was the same as the number of colors in the spectrum.

6.
E. M.
Bardar
, “
Development and analysis of spectroscopic learning tools and light and spectroscopy inventory for introductory college astronomy
,” Ph.D. dissertation,
Boston University
,
2006
.
7.
E. M.
Bardar
,
E. E.
Prather
,
K.
Brecher
, and
T. F.
Slater
, “
The need for a light and spectroscopy concept inventory for assessing innovations in introductory astronomy survey courses
,”
Astron. Educ. Rev.
4
(
2
),
20
27
(
2006
);
E. M.
Bardar
,
E. E.
Prather
,
K.
Brecher
, and
T. F.
Slater
, “
Development and validation of the light and spectroscopy concept inventory
,”
Astron. Educ. Rev.
5
(
2
),
103
113
(
2007
). The LSCI is discussed in the first paper.
8.
S.
Lee
, “
Students' understanding of spectra
,” Ph.D. dissertation,
Kansas State University
,
2006
.
9.
See, for example,
E. E.
Prather
,
T. F.
Slater
,
J. P.
Adams
, and
F.
Brissenden
, with contributions from
J. A.
Dostal
,
C. S.
Wallace
,
J. M.
and
Keller
,
Lecture-Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy
, 3rd ed. (
Pearson Prentice Hall
,
NJ
,
2012
). See also, Visual Quantum Mechanics by the Physics Education Research Group, Kansas State University as well as the PhET simulations at the University of Colorado, http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/physics/quantum-phenomena.
10.
D. A.
Zollman
,
N. S.
Rebello
, and
K.
Hogg
, “
Quantum mechanics for everyone: Hands-on activities integrated with technology
,”
Am. J. Phys.
70
(
3
),
252
259
(
2002
).
11.
M.
McCloskey
, “
Naive theories of motion
,” in
Mental models
, edited by
D.
Gentner
and
A.
Stevens
(
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
,
Hillsdale, NJ
,
1983
), pp.
299
324
.
12.
M. T.
Chi
, “
Commonsense conceptions of emergent processes: Why some misconceptions are robust
,”
J. Learn. Sci.
14
(
2
),
161
199
(
2005
).
13.
D.
Hammer
,
A.
Elby
,
R. E.
Scherr
, and
E. F.
Redish
, “
Resources, framing, and transfer
,” in
Transfer of Learning from a Modern Multidisciplinary Perspective
, edited by
J.
Mestre
(
Information Age Publishing
,
Greenwich, CT
,
2005
), pp.
89
120
.
14.
A.
diSessa
, “
Towards an epistemology of physics
,”
Cognit. Instr.
10
(
2–3
),
105
225
(
1993
).
15.
M. C.
Linn
,
B.
Eylon
, and
E. A.
Davis
, “
The knowledge integration perspective on learning
,” in
Internet Environments for Science Education
, edited by
M. C.
Linn
,
E. A.
Davis
, and
P.
Bell
(
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
,
Mahwah, NJ
,
2004
).
16.
G.
Ozdemir
and
D. B.
Clark
, “
An overview of conceptual change theories
,”
Eurasia J. Math. Sci. Technol. Ed.
,
3
(
4
),
351
361
(
2007
).
17.
See, for example,
L. C.
McDermott
, “
Millikan Lecture 1990: What we teach and what is learned—closing the gap
,”
Am. J. Phys.
59
(
4
),
301
315
(
1991
).
18.
For an example of the process of research, curriculum development, assessment in another context, see,
L. C.
McDermott
and
P. S.
Shaffer
, “
Research as a guide for curriculum development: An example from introductory electricity. I. Investigation of student understanding
,”
Am. J. Phys.
60
(
11
),
994
1003
(
1992
);
P. S.
Shaffer
and
L. C.
McDermott
, “
Research as a guide for curriculum development: An example from introductory electricity. II. Design of instructional strategies
,”
Am. J. Phys.
60
(
11
),
1003
1013
(
1992
).
19.

For Questions 2 and 3, students are shown a portion of an atomic spectra consisting of 11 lines and asked two questions. Question 2: Which of the line(s) correspond to a transition between the two closest atomic energy levels? Question 3: What is the minimum number of energy levels required to produce the spectra consisting of 11 lines?

20.

The UW Honors course consists of students enrolled in a university honors program. Students in this section are interested in taking a physics course that goes into greater depth than do the regular sections. They tend to be strong students with good preparation, although the percentage of physics majors is essentially the same as in the regular course sections.

21.

Tutorial questions are a standard part of the examinations in the introductory calculus-based physics courses at UW. Thus, the number of post-test questions that we can ask on a single exam is limited and the questions need to vary from exam to exam. Since the results have been similar from one quarter to another and from one class to another, our assessment of student understanding is constructed from a variety of questions given over multiple years to different students.

22.

The juniors in Croatia and beginning physics graduate students at UW are very comparable. The coursework that has been taken by both groups is similar.

23.
Difficulties with negative potential energy have been documented in other contexts. See, for example,
B. M.
Stephanik
and
P. S.
Shaffer
, “
Examining student ability to interpret and use potential energy diagrams for classical systems
,”
Proc. Phys. Educ. Res. Conf.
1413
,
367
370
(
2011
).
24.
For other examples in which we examined student learning for students of different levels of academic achievement, see
B. S.
Ambrose
,
P. S.
Shaffer
,
R. N.
Steinberg
, and
L. C.
McDermott
, “
An investigation of student understanding of single-slit diffraction and double-slit interference
,”
Am. J. Phys.
67
(
2
),
146
155
(
1999
);
S.
Vokos
,
P. S.
Shaffer
,
B. S.
Ambrose
, and
L. C.
McDermott
, “
Student understanding of the wave nature of matter: Diffraction and interference of particles
,”
Phys. Educ. Res., Am. J. Phys. Suppl.
68
(
7
),
S42
S51
(
2000
).
25.

A breakdown by course ranking for students in the UW Honors section is not given since the number of students is relatively small. Moreover, the students in the UW Honors course generally are regarded as representing the best performing students in the regular sections of the introductory course.

26.

The results from the Croatian junior level course and the UW TAs are consistent with this finding since these courses tend to draw on students who have done well in the introductory course.

27.
Evidence for the impact of a tutorial-like approach when used in lecture can be found in
E. E.
Prather
,
T. F.
Slater
,
J. P.
Adams
,
J. M.
Bailey
,
L. V.
Jones
, and
J. A.
Dostal
, “
Research on a lecture-tutorial approach to teaching introductory astronomy for non–science majors
,”
Astron. Educ. Rev.
3
(
2
),
122
136
(
2004
);
M. C.
LoPresto
and
S. R.
Murrell
, “
Using the star properties concept inventory to compare instruction with lecture tutorials to traditional lectures
,”
Astron. Educ. Rev.
8
(
1
)
010105
(
2009
).
See also,
M.
Kryjevskaia
,
A.
Boudreaux
, and
D.
Heins
, “
Assessing the flexibility of research-based instructional strategies: Implementing tutorials in introductory physics in the lecture environment
,”
Am. J. Phys.
82
,
238
250
(
2014
).
28.

The “clicker” questions were short multiple-choice questions posed by the instructor at various times during each lecture. Each student had a small electronic device (“clicker”) that he or she could use to transmit responses to a central computer. Students were asked to discuss their ideas with one another before choosing their answers.

29.
See the last article in Ref. 27.
30.
L. C.
McDermott
and the
Physics Education Group at the University of Washington
,
Physics by Inquiry
(
John Wiley and Sons, NY, Inc.
,
1996
). The modules in this laboratory-based curriculum are especially designed to prepare pre-university teachers to teach physics and physical science as a process of inquiry.
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