United States

course reform

assessment

**Making Physics More Inclusive and Eliminating Exclusionary Practices in Physics**

As a gateway discipline to STEM majors and careers, physics plays a central role in deciding who does, and who doesn't, get to discover and pursue scientific careers. Technical and scientific professionals are rewarded with economic privilege and status which affords them both social and cultural power. Therefore, social justice will be realized only when the opportunity, and the choice, to excel in physics is open to all students. The culture and practices of the physics classroom reflect the culture of physics at large, which raises the question of how our professional physics communities can embrace, rather than inadvertently repel, a diverse group of academics that can help improve physics culture.  To this end, the 2021 Physics Education Research Conference will focus on defining inclusive spaces and practices. Additionally, we will explore strategies for eliminating exclusionary practices in our classrooms, research spaces, and professional organizations. We call on the community to propose sessions that will drive conversations related to these initiatives throughout PERC 2021.

Please download the full program [here. ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TRMC_SYJ3PUqXyP7sskA7LRSA8ow0eRE/view?usp=sharing)

PERC SM21

August 4, 2021 - August 5, 2021 in a Virtual Conference Format

Making Physics More Inclusive and Eliminating Exclusionary Practices in Physics

Conceptual inventories such as the FCI are widely used to assess the impact of course reform efforts in physics education. Gains on these instruments, however, are known to correlate with other student variables such as students’ SAT score. I make use of this type of underlying correlation to communicate the impact of course reforms to broad audiences outside of physics education for which the FCI is not a useful benchmark. To illustrate this approach, I present an analysis of FCI learning gains that are disaggregated by ACT score before and after a major course reform in an introductory physics course. In this sample, normalized learning gains shifted from 0.28 to 0.46 were found to be equivalent to a shift in average ACT score from 24 to 29. Implications for the communicating research and evaluation results with different audiences are discussed.

Making use of FCI–ACT Correlations to Communicate the Impact of Course Reform

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When the light bulb turns on: motivation and collaboration spark the creation of ideas for theoretical physicists

Physics Problem-Solvers on Why They Generate Unprompted Diagrams

Physics students and matrix multiplication: evaluating their interpretations

Balancing content of computerized adaptive testing for the Force Concept Inventory

Bias on the Force Concept Inventory across the intersection of gender and race

Comparing item response theory models for ranking incorrect response options

Using the Assessment Rubric for Physics Inquiry for open inquiries in a multidisciplinary lab course

Preliminary results on a video-based force concept inventory

Creating honest and fair remote introductory physics assessments

Comparing pre/post item response curves to identify changes in misconceptions

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Making use of FCI–ACT Correlations to Communicate the Impact of Course Reform

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