Nash, C. Self-Direction in Physics Graduate Education: Insights for STEM from David J. Rowe’s Career-Long Methods. Challenges2022, 13, 45.
Nash, C. Self-Direction in Physics Graduate Education: Insights for STEM from David J. Rowe’s Career-Long Methods. Challenges 2022, 13, 45.
Nash, C. Self-Direction in Physics Graduate Education: Insights for STEM from David J. Rowe’s Career-Long Methods. Challenges2022, 13, 45.
Nash, C. Self-Direction in Physics Graduate Education: Insights for STEM from David J. Rowe’s Career-Long Methods. Challenges 2022, 13, 45.
Abstract
The ability to self-direct a research program determines graduate degree completion. Yet, research on incompletion of graduate physics programs assume students’ present level of self-direction adequate and neglects to recognize a lack of self-directed learning as key. One theoretical mathematical physicist focused on changing this challenge of physics graduate education by promoting self-directed learning through the type research flow that has been found to bring the greatest satisfaction to researchers with respect to their insights. This he provided through his space, time, open mindedness and theoretical contributions with his students and in collaboration with his colleagues. A self-directed learner himself, David J. Rowe developed methods of mentoring for encouraging physics graduate students to recognize symmetry as valuable in identifying solutions to problems quickly—helping these students take the lead in finding insightful resolutions to complex, multidimensional, mathematical physics uncertainties. How Rowe set about supporting self-directed learning in his graduate physics education interactions will be examined with the use of narrative research to interpret the texts and conversations with the author he made available. His techniques will be presented and recommendations made regarding how Rowe’s work in this regard can be modeled to improve self-direction in STEM graduate education.
Keywords
self-directed learning; graduate education; flow; David J. Rowe; open mindedness; mentoring; symmetry; narrative research; STEM
Subject
Physical Sciences, Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
