Between the poles: Locating physics majors in the expert-novice continuum

Expert-novice comparisons have been a productive research tool for investigating many aspect of physics education, including physics conceptions, views about physics, and problem solving activities. These comparisons have typically focused on differences between introductory physics students and physics professor. This thesis examines undergraduate physics majors, who have an intermediate amount of experience studying physics. Known expert-novice distinctions are used to characterize physics majors' views about science and problem solving activities. Views about science are measured with the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey. Follow-up interviews allowed students to elaborate on their responses to the survey and informed the interpretation of the survey data. During the interviews, students were asked to solve two physics problems. The students' approaches to these problems and their problem solving heuristics are characterized using a scheme developed from known expert-novice differences. It was found that undergraduate physics majors' have many views and problem solving abilities that are similar to those of experts. The implications for teaching physics and physics education research are discussed.