Assessing Students’ Attitudes In A College Physics Course In Mexico

Garza, Jorge de la; Alarcon, Hugo; Singh, Chandralekha; Sabella, Mel; Rebello, Sanjay

doi:10.1063/1.3515178

Cited by 13 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Even in the Spring semester, in which CLASS indices declined in an absolute sense, the presence of this traditional-lecture comparison allowed us to see that Active Physics conferred benefits in a relative sense. The current literature contains several examples of scalable IE courses leading to absolute declines in CLASS [10,17], but our results highlight the possibility that even courses with somewhat "mixed" results may actually be producing consistent benefits relative to what students would experience in traditional-lecture courses. Another important finding is that the Active-Physics curriculum had clear benefits for both males and females across both semesters of introductory physics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…Recently, impressive gains on the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) [16] have emerged in pure inquiry-based introductory physics courses. Overall, CLASS gains ranging from 3% to 12% have been achieved with the Modeling Instruction curriculum [5,6,17], 4% to 16% with Physics in Everyday Thinking/Physical Science in Everyday Thinking curricula [7], and 1% to 25% with Physics by Inquiry [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multiyear, multi-instructor evaluation of a large-class interactive-engagement curriculum

Cahill

Hynes

Trousil

et al. 2014

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

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Interactive-engagement (IE) techniques consistently enhance conceptual learning gains relative to traditional-lecture courses, but attitudinal gains typically emerge only in small, inquiry-based curricula. The current study evaluated whether a "scalable IE" curriculum-a curriculum used in a large course (∼130 students per section) and likely adoptable by a wide range of physics departments-could produce significant attitudinal benefits relative to a traditional-lecture curriculum. This study included data across three years, 10 instructors, over 30 sections, and over 1100 students, and our analytic strategy allowed us to isolate the effects that were due to the curriculum itself rather than other potential factors such as instructor differences or preexisting differences among students. Results revealed that our Active-Physics curriculum, which is based on Moore's Six Ideas That Shaped Physics, produced significant attitudinal and conceptuallearning benefits relative to our traditional-lecture physics curriculum. Further, the Active-Physics curriculum, for the most part, benefitted males and females equally, and relative to the Fall semester alone, the benefits of Active Physics became more robust when viewed across the entire two-semester sequence of introductory physics. Our data highlight that some (though not all) of the attitudinal benefits of small, inquiry-based courses may be achievable in larger course with scalable IE curricula that can potentially reach a large proportion of introductory physics students.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiyear, multi-instructor evaluation of a large-class interactive-engagement curriculum

Cahill

Hynes

Trousil

et al. 2014

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Because of the variability of the education systems in other countries, we did not include studies from outside the US and Canada. For those interested in these international studies, see references [8][9][10][11] . Where there was insufficient information, such as missing information about error or average pre-and posttest scores, we contacted the authors for clarification and/or additional data.…”

Section: How Does Physics Instruction Impact Students' Beliefs?mentioning

confidence: 99%

How physics instruction impacts students’ beliefs about learning physics: A meta-analysis of 24 studies

Madsen

McKagan

Sayre

2015

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

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In this meta-analysis, we synthesize the results of 24 studies using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) and the Maryland Physics Expectations Survey (MPEX) to answer several questions: (1) How does physics instruction impact students' beliefs? (2) When do physics majors develop expert-like beliefs? and (3) How do students' beliefs impact their learning of physics? We report that in typical physics classes, students' beliefs deteriorate or at best stay the same. There are a few types of interventions, including an explicit focus on model-building and/or developing expertlike beliefs that lead to significant improvements in beliefs. Further, small courses and those for elementary education and non-science majors also result in improved beliefs. However, because the available data oversamples certain types of classes, it is unclear whether these improvements are actually due to the interventions, or due to the small class size, or student population typical of the kinds of classes in which these interventions are most often used. Physics majors tend to enter their undergraduate education with more expert-like beliefs than non-majors and these beliefs remain relatively stable throughout their undergraduate careers. Thus, typical physics courses appear to be selecting students who already have strong beliefs, rather than supporting students in developing strong beliefs. There is a small correlation between students' incoming beliefs about physics and their gains on conceptual mechanics surveys. This suggests that students with more expert-like incoming beliefs may learn more in their physics courses, but this finding should be further explored and replicated. Some unanswered questions remain. To answer these questions, we advocate several specific types of future studies: measuring students' beliefs in courses with a wider range of class sizes, student populations, and teaching methods, especially large classes with very innovative pedagogy and small classes with more typical pedagogy; analysis of the relationship between students' beliefs and conceptual understanding including a wide variety of variables that might influence each; and analysis of large data sets from a variety of classes that track individual students rather than averaging over classes.

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“…Brewe and colleagues initially reported positive shifts in both clusters in a small study of two semesters (N=22 and N=23) of physics taught using Modeling Instruction and were able to reproduce positive shifts with a larger sample of 221 students [5,32]. Another study of 44 students utilizing Modeling Instruction by de la Garza and colleagues reported a null shift in the Personal Interest cluster but a positive one in the Real World Connection cluster [33]. From these studies we see that the typical result for the CLASS across many classroom contexts is negative, with some examples of positive results.…”

Section: Class -Personal Interest and Real World Connectionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Operationalizing relevance in physics education: Using a systems view to expand our conception of making physics relevant

Nair

Sawtelle

2019

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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A common hope of many physics educators and researchers is that students leave the course with a stronger sense that physics is relevant to them than when they entered the course. Multiple survey measures have attempted to measure shifts in students' beliefs on the relevance of physics but frequently the results show a negative shift in students' beliefs and are often reported as a failure of students to "see the relevance." We challenge this interpretation by first operationalizing relevance as a construct by using existing theories on beliefs and attitudes. We utilize ecological systems theory to identify rich sites of relevance in students lives and present evidence to demonstrate the rich ways students are able to make relevant connections to physics. We then reflect on the implications of this expanded view on the limitations of past measures of relevance. We articulate how incorporating students' disciplinary ideas and expertise into the classroom can challenge previous deficit-framed narratives of students' abilities to find the relevance of physics.

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Assessing Students’ Attitudes In A College Physics Course In Mexico

Cited by 13 publications

References 6 publications

Multiyear, multi-instructor evaluation of a large-class interactive-engagement curriculum

Multiyear, multi-instructor evaluation of a large-class interactive-engagement curriculum

How physics instruction impacts students’ beliefs about learning physics: A meta-analysis of 24 studies

Operationalizing relevance in physics education: Using a systems view to expand our conception of making physics relevant

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