Research

Assessment of Multiple Representations in STEM Disciplines

As part of my graduate studies under the guiduance of Dr. Thomas Holme, we developed the the Variable Representation Assessment (VRA). The VRA is a multiple-choice question assessment that asks students to answer discipline-specific items while using multiple representations as their answer choices. As students use the VRA, the systems tracks both their answer choices and the order in which they view each set of represetnations. By using both of these sources of information, we gain greater insight into how students' knowledge of those representations and how those representations are taught in classes. Currently, the VRA has been implemented for general chemistry, organic chemistry, and geology.

Interested in trying the VRA with your students?

If you are interested in using the VRA with your students, please use contact me at jackpolifka@boisestate.edu.

Versions of the VRA

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Web Development Education

With training in discipline-based education research and +10 years of professional experience of web programming, I am interested in using my skills to better understand how web development is taught to undergraduates. My current project in this area is to complete a systemitzed literature review to better understand what areas of the discipline are developed or not. I will use the results of this project to determine next steps in this research area.