Doing Introductory Mechanics in a Neurodivergent Way – Preliminary results from think-aloud interviews

Neurodivergent (e.g.: autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, OCD, bipolar) students report learning and doing physics in ways that are not supported by dominant ways of teaching physics and assessing physics competence. However, there are very few empirical studies that investigate exactly how neurodivergent students do and learn physics in the first place. To, in part, remedy this dearth of research, we conducted in-depth think-aloud interviews with 17 neurodivergent physics undergraduate students and asked them to solve unscaffolded and open-ended introductory mechanics questions. We report preliminary findings from these interviews and discuss neuro-inclusive best practices for teaching students with a range of abilities.