Oral Thesis Defense - Evan Chase - April 3 - Maine Center for Research in STEM Education

UMaine Alert

Posted: April 19, 2024 - 1:32 PM

At approximately 9:24 a.m. on Friday, April 19, a University of Maine graduate student was struck by a university vehicle on Long Road at the University of Maine campus in Orono. The student reports that they are at a local hospital with minor injuries.

Emergency services, including the Orono Fire Department, University Volunteer Ambulance Corps, University of Maine Police Department, Orono Police Department and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

The university vehicle involved in the incident was a Chevrolet Express van. It was being operated by a university employee.

Counseling services and support are available for students, faculty or staff who may have been affected. The Counseling Center can be reached at 207-581-1392 and the Dean of Students Office can be reached at 207-581-1406.

The scene has been cleared and Long Road is now accessible. An investigation is being conducted by the University of Maine Police Department with assistance from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office Crash Reconstruction Unit. Any witnesses to the incident are encouraged to contact Lt. Noel Santiago at noel.santiago@maine.edu.

Oral Thesis Defense – Evan Chase – April 3

March 25, 2013 Archives, Calendar, News, People

ORAL THESIS DEFENSE

MST Candidate
Evan Chase

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Michael C. Wittmann

An Abstract of the Thesis Presented
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Master of Science in Teaching

May, 2013

INVESTIGATING PHYSICS STUDENTS’ SIMULTANEOUS USE OF GESTURES & SPEECH TO DESCRIBE MULTIPLE QUANTITIES OF A
VERTICALLY-TOSSED BALL

While conversing, people typically produce hand gestures which can communicate additional information to the listener. To study how physics students use gestures in addition to their speech to explain a ball being tossed into the air, individual interviews were conducted with physics majors who had completed half of an eight-semester physics program at the University of Maine. These interviews conformed to the standards set by current qualitative education research. Students were asked to discuss kinematic quantities and forces associated with the motion of a ball thrown straight up, both with and without the force of air resistance. Video episodes were selected for detailed analysis which contained moments of students gesturing and speaking simultaneously, such that the referents of the speech and gesture did not appear to match. A more explicit methodology than that found in the current literature on gesture research in physics is defined. This methodology is used to show that these physics students were able to portray information about kinematics and force quantities simultaneously with gestures and speech, and in some cases were able to describe changes in one quantity with a hand and another quantity with the fingers on the same hand.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013
8:30 a.m.
Arthur St. John Hill Auditorium, ESRB
165 Barrows Hall