Dynamics of productive confirmation framing in an introductory lab

In introductory physics laboratory instruction, students often expect to confirm or demonstrate textbook physics concepts. This expectation is largely undesirable: labs that emphasize confirmation of textbook physics concepts are generally unsuccessful at teaching those concepts and even in contexts that do not emphasize confirmation, such expectations can lead to students disregarding or manipulating their data in order to obtain the expected result. In other words, when students expect their lab activities to confirm a known result, they may relinquish epistemic agency and violate disciplinary practices. We present a contrasting case where, we claim, confirmatory expectations can actually support productive disciplinary engagement. In this case study, we analyze the complex dynamics of students’ epistemological framing in a lab where students’ confirmatory expectations support and even generate epistemic agency and disciplinary practices, including developing original ideas, measures, and apparatuses to apply to the material world.