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We collaborated with our universitys office of institutional research to assess pedagogical changes in our calculus-based introductory physics courses using different sets of student data. We found that switching to a competency-based grading system in these classes reduced the drop/fail/withdrawal rates and course-associated grade penalties of under-represented minority, first generation, and female students. We separately performed a longitudinal study to identify how changing the curriculum of these physics courses affected student performance in downstream engineering courses. We found that increasing the calculus content in introductory physics correlated with higher grades earned in subsequent engineering courses, and that these downstream benefits were largest for students with lower math abilities. Taken together, these results demonstrate how instructors can use educational data sets to make improvements in their courses that specifically target improving the performance and retention of traditionally underserved populations.

PERC SM 20

Changing pedagogy to help traditionally under-served populations

institutional data ; curriculum modification ; under-served populations

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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?

Building on prior analyses of how introductory physics experiences affect student attitudes, preliminary evidence suggests that IPLS students, more so than their counterparts in traditional introductory physics courses, express the attitude that physics is relevant to their primary biological interests. We report on the durability of these attitudes. We present results from interdisciplinary attitude surveys given to students a year (or more) after their initial experience in IPLS, as well as immediately after that experience. By tracking the evolution of student attitudes over time, we assess whether attitude improvements due to IPLS are in fact stable and long-lasting. We also explore how students subsequent coursework in biology or other disciplines may influence these attitudes.

Exploring the Durability of Student Attitudes Toward Interdisciplinarity

An instructional intervention consisting of students interacting with eight short videos on scientific topics was introduced to a general education physics class. The effects of these videos on student attitudes about science and their scientific reasoning skills were assessed by comparison of pre- and post-test data from the CLASS and Lawsons Test of Scientific Reasoning for two control and three treatment semesters. Initial findings showed improved student attitudes toward science and improved scientific reasoning skills. With continued use of the videos in additional semesters, similar pre-post gains in scientific reasoning skills were observed, however, less improvement in student attitudes toward science was measured. This decrease in improvement of student attitudes as the new course activity became standard has implications for the number of semesters a new curriculum aimed at improving student attitudes should be studied. Most new curricula only report a semester or two of results before wide implementation occurs.

Changes in Student Attitudes and Curricular Benefits as a New Course Activity Becomes Standard (PERC)

Many researchers have studied aspects of problem-solving. Recent work has characterized problem-solving in terms of the decisions made by and practices of an expert scientist as they solve authentic problems in their field. One crucial decision involves the assumptions that are made in the process of defining and solving an authentic problem. While making assumptions is required for simplifying authentic problems, students are provided with little opportunity to practice making simplifying assumptions and check those assumptions. Results from two studies show that one of the students' shortcomings is making erroneous assumptions and failing to effectively reflect upon accuracy of their assumptions. Indeed, unchecked assumptions can interfere with problem-solvers' ability to solve different types of physics problems despite the use of other effective practices. The results suggest that, for effective problem-solving, we should give students more training in making simplifying assumptions and reflecting upon them as they are solving problems.

Implicit and unchecked assumptions interfere with problem-solving in physics

We describe an investigation focusing on advanced students and faculty members reasoning about two questions related to the double-slit experiment with single particles. One question posed was a standard double slit question while the other question was more speculative. First, students in advanced quantum mechanics courses were asked the questions in written form and six students were interviewed individually in which they were asked follow up questions to make their thought processes explicit. We also interviewed five faculty members who had taught modern physics, quantum mechanics and/or solid state physics to understand their reasoning and thought processes. The faculty members responses shed light on what it means to think like a physicist. Student responses varied greatly in their correctness and sophistication of reasoning, suggesting that even advanced students need scaffolding support in order to learn to think like a physicist.

Advanced Students’ and faculty members’ reasoning about the double-slit experiment with single particles (PERC)

Students enter classrooms with an accumulation of experiences. This case study examined the effect of multiple factors, including undergraduate students prior knowledge and attitudes, on their (G)FCI scores and final class grades. The participants were 43 students in an introductory mechanics class for engineers. The students completed either the FCI or GFCI to test for any differences due to the context of questions. We found that students GPA, self-reported gender, prior advanced physics classes, and negative attitudes towards physics to be the most predictive variables of their scores. Male students scored on average almost twice as high as their female counterpart regardless of the test taken. Though past research has shown no significant difference between the FCI and GFCI, we did detect a difference in the perceived ease of the questions. Notably, 53% of the students did not meet the 60% threshold which indicates the initiation of Newtonian thinking

Contributing Effects to Students’ Performance on the FCI as a measure of Physics Knowledge

Research group meetings can often function as a space for members to share their own research, receive constructive feedback, and stay informed on what others in the group are working on. This poster will introduce an activity that aims to use the PER group meeting time to reflect on the work that is being done and the values that researchers bring to their research. We will discuss how the existing group norms supported the creation and execution of this activity. The poster will discuss our reasoning and process for creating the activity and will include the activity itself. Perspectives from different participants of the activity will be shared along with how these group members interacted with the activity. Poster attendees would be invited to think together with us on how they might want to adopt/adapt the activity for their own groups.

Scaffolding Collective Reflection in a Physics Education Research Group

This project models the complexity of how students and faculty think about change within university STEM departments. We argue that how people think about change can affect the change process. Our model includes the personal experiences they draw on, the way they logically connect these experiences to their conclusions about change, and their beliefs about how change happens. Viewing interviews with students and faculty in university STEM departments, we developed a change complexity codebook which suggests the potential relationship between logic, complexity, and deep-rooted change. We will argue that engaging in sensemaking is a necessary process for enacting deep-rooted change.

Modeling the Complexity of Change Perspectives and the Implications of Sensemaking

This article outlines survey results seeking to understand USA Physics Education Research (PER) Ph.D. programs. The survey explored research group composition, the number of graduates, courses taken and more. The survey was sent to a list of PER research group leaders created by crowdsourcing from the PER community. Of the 46 PER Ph.D. programs identified and invited to the survey, 25 usable responses were received. The majority of programs were in departments of physics with fewer in schools of education or institutes of science education. Most programs required graduate physics course work, with fewer requiring research methodology courses. Only five required a course in PER. The majority of graduates into academic careers. However, a robust minority pursued careers in the private sector. The survey results allow us to estimate the size of the PER community in research groups at PhD granting institutions to be n=487 people with n=156 P.h.D. students. Graduate Programs in Physics Education Research

Graduate Programs in Physics Education Research

Problem-solving is an important skill for undergraduate physics students. In addition to having the basic skills and background knowledge, students epistemic framing can play an important role in their ability to solve physics problems. As part of a bigger effort in understanding how to help instructors to better facilitate students work, we would like to find out when students proceed through problems in similar ways and the potential relationship between question characteristics and students framing to these questions. In this study, we use a two-dimensional theoretical framework (CAMP framework: Conceptual Physics, Algorithmic Physics, Conceptual Math, Algorithmic Math) to analyze and compare different students framing to the same set of questions of research-based tutorials in upper-division electricity and magnetism. We present a case study of comparing the self-reported framing of two students as they work through the same set of tutorial problems. Preliminary analysis suggests a correlation between question characteristics and student epistemic framing.

Question characteristics and students’ epistemic framing

The rapid spread of COVID-19 this spring abruptly halted normal everyday student and teacher experiences across the United States and the world. In addition to forcing classes online at many universities, the impact of the virus posed a number of external pressures for students as they struggled to complete their semester. We seek to bring light to those pressures through the lens of their physics coursework. In this case study, we looked at these impacts on three student subpopulations: beginning undergraduate students (n=13), advanced undergraduates (n=10), and graduate student TAs (n=8) Results of an end of semester survey revealed that decreased motivation had a large impact on student work for all subgroups. We found that advanced students had the largest increase in stress levels related to coursework graduate TAs struggled with supporting students. We discuss nuances and implications of instruction for next year.

Lightning changes amidst Covid-19: A case study of how a large research institute moved physics classes and labs online and its impact on students and graduate teaching instructors

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