Violating expectations is not inherently a bad thing.Indeed, doing so may provide an opportunity for students
to change their epistemologies about physics and learning.However, such opportunities should be scaffolded to minimize
dissatisfaction. One way to do this is to shift theirexpectations about how they should be taught; for example,
as students become convinced that lecture is not always thebest way for them to learn, they may feel that lecture is
inappropriate behavior in certain situations and therefore expect it less. A previous study of students’ expectations in
a pedagogically reformed course showed that pedagogical expectations can be shifted very early in the semester when
class time and instructor effort are explicitly devoted toward orienting the class [38].
Therefore, EV serves as a powerful framework for
uncovering potential reasons for students’ dissatisfaction
in PAT, which in turn should suggest ways to improve
orientation to the course so as to mitigate frustration and
confusion.