Articles and Advice

• • Writing as a generative process: How to make the first draft of your research paper.

  • Writing better papers: How to make a coherent and easy-to-read research paper.

  • Lit reviews: How to review the literature on your topic, including how to write lit reviews in your papers. 

  • Beautiful posters: How to make an engaging, informative, and beautiful research poster.

  • Authorship on papers: how to decide who is an author, in what order, and why.

Designing research projects

• • Research design: How to design better research projects, and how to develop your skill as someone who generates research projects.

  • Planning research projects: How to develop a timeline for an education research project that makes space for emergence via iterative design.

  • Data and access: What are the common kinds of data in education research, and what are their affordances and constraints?

Methods in discipline-based education research

• • Conducting video-based research: How to conduct your first research project using videodata.  Focuses on the process rather than specific software or methods.

  • Design-based research: What is design-based research (DBR), and how should you develop your first DBR project?

Research philosophy

• • Research process models: How should we conceptualize the processes of doing research?  Two models, one productive and one not.

  • Generation, iteration, reflection: core elements of successful research.  An article which addresses explicitly some of the underlying themes in this series.

  • Writing a statement of research interests: How to write your statement of research interests as a prospective graduate student or prospective faculty member, or as a reflective exercise to figure out what you want to do.

Getting a job

• • Academic job talks: An introduction to the genre of job talks, and how to make a great one.

  • Interviewing in a physics department: The flow of a typical flyout visit and issues to look for.

  • Negotiating a faculty job: What to think about when you've got an offer

Working with students

• • Reference letters for students: A practical guide for writing letters, aimed at the faculty who write them.

  • Research with undergraduates: How to manage a research program which primarily involves undergraduates as researchers. 

• • How big is PER? A FAQ: Some common questions about the size and shape of PER, aimed at curious physics departments.

  • h-indices in PER: The h-index is a measure of how well-cited a person is; I calculated them for PERers as a function of job maturity. 

  • Affirmation cards: Affirmation cards tell other people how you appreciate them and affirm the value of their work.  This is the story of how they came to PER, including directions for how to make your own.