Examining the relation of high school preparation and college achievement to conceptual understanding

Hewagallage, Dona; Christman, Elaine; Stewart, John

doi:10.1103/physrevphyseducres.18.010149

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 72 publications

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“…Thus, we were unable to examine the predictive validity of physics pre-college preparation. Evidence supporting the relationship between high-school physics preparation and college performance in physics ranges from a weak or modest relationship (Halloun and Hestenes, 1985;Hart and Cottle, 1993;Alters, 1995;Burkholder and Wieman, 2019;Hewagallage et al, 2022), to no relationship at all (Champagne and Klopfer, 1982). The extant literature offers an array of factors that may modulate this relationship and its strength, including the quality of high-school physics instruction, the extent of physics preparation (e.g., one course or more than one), and even students' overall high-school achievement (Sadler and Tai, 2001;Bazelais et al, 2018;Lawton et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning physics online or face-to-face: A case study of STEM and non-STEM students

et al. 2022

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The academic performance of young women is particularly relevant to the success of societies that have only recently begun to address gender inequalities in education and the workforce. The present research examined the performance in a physics course of STEM and non-STEM female freshmen from such a society. It aimed to determine whether the change to online instruction, forced by the pandemic on students who had been accustomed to the face-to-face mode, affected their performance. In the study, performance on lab assignments and tests distributed across the semester (formative assessment measures) differed. Namely, STEM students performed better than non-STEM students on lab assignments and better online than face-to-face on tests. Non-STEM students’ performance on both lab assignments and tests remained insensitive to the mode of instruction. Performance on the final test and course grades, both of which were treated as summative assessment measures, replicated the pattern of effects exhibited by tests distributed across the entire semester. For all students, prior math proficiency made a limited contribution to performance. The findings of this study suggest that young women, who during the pandemic were brought back to the constraints of the home, were resilient in the face of change. According to physics instructors and students, by distributing study efforts more continuously in the online mode and taking advantage of recorded class meetings, they managed to promote performance (as per STEM students) or preserve it (as per non-STEM students).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning physics online or face-to-face: A case study of STEM and non-STEM students

et al. 2022

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A three-year comparative study of dominant misconceptions among first-year physics students at a South African university

Chrysostomou,

Cornell,

Naylor

2024

Phys. Educ.

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This article discusses a three-year study (2020–2022) of dominant misconceptions (DMs) for a large cohort of first-year physics course students at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Our study considered pre-test scores on the force concept inventory using a graphical method, where we found statistical differences between the mean DM scores for the 2020 cohort, as compared to the 2021 and 2022 cohort; possibly due to the onset of COVID lockdowns. We also compared our data from South Africa with cohorts based in Spain and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the method of DMs was also applied. From this comparison, we found some differences in the preconception knowledge of the cohorts. Furthermore, we included an analysis of DMs through the ‘gender lens’ for the South African cohort, finding no statistically significant difference between the means for DM scores of students who identify as male or female. Finally, given the diverse language backgrounds and levels of matriculation preparation foruniversity level physics courses, we have also shown how quickly responding to student misconceptions can be efficiently addressed using the method of DMs.

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Components of the preparation gap for physics learning vary in two learner groups

Delahay,

Lovett,

Anderson

et al. 2023

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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Examining the relation of high school preparation and college achievement to conceptual understanding

Cited by 5 publications

References 72 publications

Learning physics online or face-to-face: A case study of STEM and non-STEM students

Learning physics online or face-to-face: A case study of STEM and non-STEM students

A three-year comparative study of dominant misconceptions among first-year physics students at a South African university

Components of the preparation gap for physics learning vary in two learner groups

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