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We present a preliminary analysis of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on students in the context of a large enrollment introductory physics course. During the spring of 2020, ours was one of thousands of courses forced to change abruptly from face-to-face instruction to online delivery. We report the effects of this change on students through the lenses initially available to us, including our online homework system, an online forum, and the course evaluations. While preliminary, our results suggest that students were generally unhappy with the transition, but this disappointment did not translate into significantly reduced effort or success. Their primary concerns were not technological but stemmed from behavioral considerations either internal to themselves or external, from the instructor. Although the event probed here was the pandemic, our observations and conclusions may be applicable to other situations in which instruction changes suddenly due to natural or human-caused disasters.

PERC SM 20

Physics students’ reactions to an abrupt shift in instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic

coronavirus

pandemic

online

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AAPT SM 21

poster

Join us in exploring emergent themes in PER as a scholarly endeavor and as a research community!  Since its inception, PER has served as a confluence of discipline, theory, research methodology, practice, and application.  How have these facets and the interplays among them been fruitful for physics education globally, regionally, locally, or otherwise?  And, how have our successes and interactions influenced the very nature of PER itself?
Following the lead of AAPT for the summer meeting, PERC 20/20 was virtual. Enjoy browsing the content.

Since its inception, PER has served as a confluence of discipline, theory, research methodology, practice, and application.  How have these facets and the interplays among them been fruitful for physics education globally, regionally, locally, or otherwise?  And, how have our successes and interactions influenced the very nature of PER itself?

Since the call to action in 2003, many physicists and physics education researchers have dedicated their efforts into the reform of the Introductory Physics Life Science majors (IPLS) course. Life science and Health care experts strongly encourage IPLS instructors to cover some topics in more depth: fluids, diffusion, osmosis, entropy, enthalpy, and electrostatic forces at the microscopic level. Our research team has focused our efforts to improving IPLS students' understanding of fluids. My role has been to use my expertise in Research-Based Conceptual Assessment Instruments (RbCLAI) development, to develop a methodology for the development of the Fluids Conceptual Evaluation (FCE), an evaluation instrument designed to assess IPLS students' understanding of fluids statics and dynamics. In this poster, I will discuss the different considerations that went into this development methodology, specifically the roles of psychometrics and Rasch analysis.

Fluid Conceptual Evaluation (FCE) Development Methodology

The Attitudes and Approaches to Problem Solving (AAPS) survey was used in both pre-test and post-test settings to quantitatively measure life science majors views of learning problem solving at a regional state university in the southern US. Differences between the three sampled semesters feature potential variables in survey results. First, the sections were divided between two first-semester introductory sections and one second-semester introductory section; this difference appeared to show few overall changes. Second, the populations life science majors consisted of two separate life science major populations at different colleges with different educational goals. Third, one of the first-semester sections was affected by the mid-semester switch to online-only instruction due to restrictions related to Covid-19. The affected section showed a novice-like shift from pre to post, which appeared to particularly affect biology majors, whereas the other sections did not show an overall shift from pre to post.

Attitudes and approaches towards physics problem solving: by life science major, by course sequence, and by shutdown status

Those seeking to change the policies, practices, and cultures of universities to support effective educational practices often find it a challenge. To navigate this work, change efforts are increasingly being focused at the department-level, including two models for departmentally-based change: the Departmental Action Team (DAT) Project and Teaching Quality Framework (TQF) Initiative. In the DAT Project, externally-facilitated working groups, comprised of students, faculty, and staff, pursue collectively-determined projects aimed at improving the undergraduate experience in their department. In the TQF Initiative, externally-facilitated working groups of faculty (modeled on the DAT Project) focus on transforming teaching evaluation practices in their department. To better understand these related models of institutional change, we conducted interviews with individuals from the DAT Project and TQF Initiative, including facilitators and grant PIs. We present results that give insight into outcomes of these models, impacts of differences between the models, and avenues for growth in the models.

Improving education through departmental change: a comparison of approaches

There are many recent calls to transform lab courses to better engage students in authentic scientific practices and develop their views on the nature of science. To address these calls and support local desire for an improved lab curriculum, we have begun to work with Fort Lewis College faculty, staff, and students to transform their introductory mechanics lab to improve student learning of experimental physics. Here, we describe our preliminary work in which we sought community engagement and input on goals and content for the labs. We did this through in-depth interviews with faculty, classroom observations, student reflections, and through the formation of a Student Advisory Council. From these sources, we developed a set of guidelines and consensus learning goals, which will inform the creation of the transformed lab course.

Process of transforming of an introductory mechanics lab course at Fort Lewis College

Many students tend to provide intuitively appealing (but incorrect) responses to some physics questions despite demonstrating (on isomorphic questions) the formal knowledge necessary to reason correctly. These inconsistencies in reasoning are persistent and remain even after evidence-based instruction. This project probed whether a collaborative group exam could serve not only as an innovative assessment tool but also as an instructional intervention that helps addresses persistent reasoning difficulties. Specifically, students were given opportunities to revisit their answers to questions known to elicit intuitively appealing responses in a collaborative group exam component immediately following a traditional individual exam. The efficacy of this approach was compared to that of a more traditional instructor-led exam review session. Both approaches yielded moderate improvements in performance on the final exam. However, additional multi-faceted data analysis provided further insights into student reasoning difficulties that suggested further implication for instruction and research.

Investigating a collaborative group exam as an instructional tool to address student reasoning difficulties that remain even after instruction (PERC)

We describe a study in which a validated motivational survey was used to investigate the effect of working in mixed or same-gender groups on physics self-efficacy and "peer effect on self-efficacy" in a calculus-based introductory physics course in which women are severely underrepresented. Compared to those who mostly worked alone, those who worked in a group, in general, reported that their peers increased their physics self-efficacy. Moreover, for both women and men, working in same-gender groups resulted in a "protective effect" for those who reported low physics self-efficacy in that students in same gender groups with low and high self-efficacy had smaller variations in their peer effect on self-efficacy scores than those who worked in mixed gender groups. While these effects held for both men and women, the average scores on physics self-efficacy, sense of belonging and peer effect on self-efficacy were higher for men in each of these categories.

The additional benefit of working in same-gender groups on students’ self-efficacy in introductory physics

Design Principles to Support Physics and Engineering Learning in Complementary Classrooms and Field Trip Activities

Students scores on assessments play a vital role in course modifications, though their effectiveness relies on the quality of the interpretation of these scores. We adapt the notion of assessments as a change agent so that a well-developed rubric accompanied by intentionally designed instructor feedback can act as a tool to inform course improvement. In conjunction with work developing a standardized upper-division thermal physics assessment, this pilot work articulates a methodology to determine feedback for instructors to inform how well their courses support students in meeting learning goals. In this paper, we present an example using a task targeting the scientific practice of using mathematics to explicate this methodology. This work highlights the importance of assessment feedback to inform explicit course modifications in physics.

Assessment feedback: A tool to promote scientific practices in upper-division

Student beliefs and faculty beliefs about study strategies are not always aligned. Using the Effective Study Strategies Survey, student beliefs about study strategies were surveyed for three semesters at a two-year college which is also a Hispanic Serving Institution. Then faculty were asked to predict how students answered on average to a subset of the questions on the student survey. The comparison between faculty predictions and student responses is discussed. Asking the faculty in a department to predict how their students responded to a survey is a useful way of determining where alignment between faculty and student belief already exists and where it needs improvement.

Comparison of student-reported study habits with faculty expectations and predictions

We present a set of modes of reasoning about ratio and proportion as a means of operationalizing expert practice in physics. These modes, or natures of proportional reasoning, stem from consideration of how physicists reason in context and are informed by prior work in physics and mathematics education. We frame the natures as the core of an emerging framework for proportional reasoning in introductory physics, that will categorize the uses of proportional reasoning in introductory physics contexts, and provide guidance for the development of reliable assessments. We share results from preliminary assessment items indicating that university physics students have difficulty interpreting and applying ratios in context.

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Physics students’ reactions to an abrupt shift in instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic

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Fluid Conceptual Evaluation (FCE) Development Methodology

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