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Abstract
As part of a longitudinal study into identity development in upper-level physics students, a phenomenographic research method was used to examine students' perceptions of what it means to be a physicist. The results revealed four different categories of perception of what it means to be a physicist, with a clear distinction in the level of exclusivity students associate with being a physicist and differences of importance of research and its association with being a physicist. We find a relationship between students' perceptions of physicists and students' goal orientation. The paper highlights a need for faculty to not just emphasize the importance of research to students' academic development but also to further demonstrate and explain what research entails and the role it plays in a physicist's identity.
Highlights
The growth of physics as a field lags behind the growth of all other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields [1,2]
The development of a professional identity is a fundamental part of student development [5]; the development of an appropriate subject-specific identity is a strong influence on retention of students in a discipline [6]
Previous research on identity development in physics has focused on gender differences or on the lack of physics majors of color [11,12,13]
Summary
The growth of physics as a field lags behind the growth of all other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields [1,2]. The development of students’ identities will help students cope with the continuous change and uncertainty that they will face in life in the 21st century [15,16,17] It will affect their interactions within the community of practicing physicists. Different students have different perceptions of what it means to be a physicist [18], and for this reason they perceive different experiences with physics as being the end point to their identity formation as a physicist [18] This natural variation in the population of physics majors injects an element of uncertainty into research on identity formation. These varying perceptions could influence how students approach and reflect on their development as physicists.
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