Understanding how physics graduate students transition from students to researchers and teachers is important for multiple domains. In physics, an understanding of how physics students become researchers may help us to keep on training physicists who will further advance our understanding of physics. In physics education research, an understanding of how graduate students learn to teach will help us to train better physics teachers for the future. In cognitive science in the domain of expert/novice differences, researchers are interested in defining and understanding what expertise is. This work aims to provide some insight into some of the components of expertise that go into becoming a competent expert researcher in the domain of physics. This in turn may contribute to our general understanding of expertise across multiple domains.
In this dissertation, I study physics graduate students' approaches to learning, teaching, and research through semi-structured interviews. The collected data is interpreted and analyzed through a framework that focuses on students' epistemological beliefs and locus of authority. The data show that students' perception of the learning, teaching, or research environment influences their choice of approach. Physics graduate students learn "the language of physics" from the core courses, but don't learn many transferable research skills from taking courses. Constrained by the teaching environment, many graduate students are not motivated to teach as teaching assistants. Some graduate students have clearly become confident and able researchers, while others remain dependent on their advisers for even the simplest direction. The data also show that it is possible for a single graduate student to hold distinct beliefs about learning and teaching between classroom and research settings. It is possible for a well-motivated graduate student to take unfavorable approach toward learning when the environment does not support learning for deep understanding.
This dissertation attempts to distill out aspects of success in the graduate program and identify features of positive experiences that helped graduate students to transition from students to competent and confident researchers/teachers. The data suggest that having graduate students treated as legitimate participants is the vital element for them to build their confidence as researchers and teachers.