Identifying teaching practices that foster project ownership in physics labs

Physics laboratory courses are unique learning environments wherein students can learn facility with equipment, troubleshooting techniques, and written communication, and they are socialized in the profession of physics. In our three-year project, physics education researchers have partnered with upper-division physics laboratory course instructors at multiple institutions to identify how instructors align their teaching and mentoring practices with the learning goals for their courses. In this talk, I will discuss how the PER team uses and creates education research tools to learn how students develop a sense of ownership over their final projects. Our data collection includes qualitative interviewing techniques such as the Life Grid method, and quantitative assessments of courses using the Project Ownership Survey. I will present the current status of the project and briefly discuss the theorization of the construct of ownership in project-based physics lab courses.