"Answermaking" and "sensemaking" among students in an introductory college physics: Good science learning is like doing science

Broadly, my research focuses on how students interpret the nature of activity in school science settings and how that impacts what they learn. In this presentation I will describe characterizations of two ways students can interpret their activity in science classes, I label them answermaking and sensemaking. Answermaking is common and unproductive for the goal of students coming to see the concepts of physics for what they are, ways of making sense of physical phenomena. Sensemaking is a potentially productive student view of school activity for this goal. I will present the results of a study using a qualitative survey instrument we designed that shows how students interpret the activity in a physics class can be influenced by the kinds of questions they are asked. The data also suggests that instructional practices in large enrollment introductory course settings can influence students' interpretation of the activity.