Analyzing Two Types of Pre-professional Knowledge of Students in Physics Classrooms

College classrooms are meant to prepare students for their future professions. There are two types of common professions which come out of physics classrooms: researchers and teachers. Each population comes with different aspects of knowledge to be acquired before they become professionals. We investigated the knowledge of pre-professional researchers by examining the content knowledge of graduate students in the context of graduate-level, classical Lagrangian mechanics. To examine this knowledge we implemented pre/post-assessments in a classical mechanics course for three semesters and used problem-based questions to interview students. We developed course materials used for an inquiry-based classical mechanics section and a rubric to assess pre/post-questions. To analyze the pre/post-assessments, we measured the gain across semesters and by each skill detailed in the rubric. To analyze the interviews, we used thematic analysis to capture the details of the students’ knowledge. We then compare the inquiry-based and traditional-based classical mechanics sections by their gains, and present the common difficulties that arose across all the data. We investigated one form of knowledge of pre-professional teachers by determining if one could assess the pedagogical content knowledge of learning assistants with open-ended written questions in the context of an inquiry-based introductory physics class. To accomplish this, we took video recordings of classroom observations to determine the types of interactions between students and learning assistants, and developed a theory of pedagogical content knowledge that applies to learning assistants. We then developed a rubric for the types of questions or statements used by learning iv Texas Tech University, Kyle Wipfli, May 2025 assistants. Based on this rubric, we developed a second rubric that details the types of interactions that occurred. Simultaneously, we developed and validated a set of questions based on the observations to assess learning assistants pedagogical content knowledge in an inquiry-based physics classroom.We then implemented the questions for reliability and validity.