Physics computational literacy: Programming, modeling, and collaboration at the journeyman level
In his recently published paper in Physical Review Physics Education Research, which was featured as an Editors’ Suggestion, "Physics computational literacy: Programming, modeling, and collabora-tion at the journeyman level," Fredly interviewed 13 Master’s students to map this development. Using the Physics Computational Literacy (PCL) framework, the study describes computational liter-acy at the "journeyman" level, a stage where students are no longer just following rigid rules but are beginning to develop the situational intuition and wide toolkit of an expert.
The research identified two distinct shifts in student competence. Firstly, students reported that while introductory courses provided a good foundation, the most significant development occurred in large, project-based courses like the astronomy course AST2000 or the computational physics course FYS3150. These courses forced students to write larger, more complex code, and divide coding tasks between multiple people. Together, these challenges forced students to engage with the programming in ways that made them much more adept.
Karl Henrik Fredly is a Doctoral Research Fellow at CCSE.
Read the paper.
Published Mar. 26, 2026 3:58 PM
- Last modified Mar. 26, 2026 4:11 PM
