Instructors’ reasons for choosing problem features in a calculus-based introductory physics course

Written quiz responses of 653 students in three separate courses are analyzed in detail. There has been relatively little research on student learning of thermodynamics in physics courses at the university level. A recent study by Loverude et al. has made it evident that students at the introductory level (and beyond) face many significant difficulties in learning fundamental thermodynamic concepts such as the first law of thermodynamics. I have been engaged in an ongoing project with T. J. Greenbowe to investigate student learning of thermodynamics in both physics and chemistry courses. As part of that investigation, a short diagnostic quiz has been administered over the past two years in the calculus-based introductory physics course at Iowa State University (ISU). This quiz focuses on heat, work, and the first law of thermodynamics. At ISU, thermodynamics is studied at the end of the second semester of the twosemester sequence in calculus-based introductory general physics. This course is taught in a traditional manner, with large lecture classes (up to 250 students), weekly recitation sections (about 25 students), and weekly labs taught by graduate students. Homework is assigned and graded every week. Thermal physics comprises 18-20% of the course coverage, and includes a wide variety of topics such as calorimetry, heat conduction, kinetic theory, laws of thermodynamics, heat engines, entropy, etc. The diagnostic quiz used in this study is shown below; it has been administered in three separate classes. The version shown here was administered in May 2001; the other two versions (December 1999 and December 2000) had very minor variations from the one shown here. (There were one or two additional questions on these quizzes which are not discussed here.) The 1999 and 2000 classes were taught by the same instructor, using a different textbook in each course. The 2001 course was taught by a different instructor, using the same text that was employed in the 1999 course. Both instructors are very experienced and have taught introductory physics at ISU for many years. The quiz was administered in two different ways: in 1999 and 2001, it was given as a practice quiz in the final recitation session (last week of class). In almost all cases it was ungraded; one instructor used it as a graded quiz. In 2000 the quiz was administered as an ungraded practice quiz in the very last lecture class of the year. This p-V diagram represents a system consisting of a fixed amount of ideal gas that undergoes two different processes in going from state A to state B:

In this study we conduct an integrated assessment of first-year performance in introductory calculus and physics courses. We use well-accepted conceptual assessment instruments, initial state data such as the SAT, and our own recently developed instruments designed to measure aptitude in mathematics to develop a predictive model for student performance. The analyzed population was composed of undergraduate students at Clarkson University, cross-enrolled in the calculus-based introductory physics course and the introductory calculus course from 2004 to 2007. Both the mathematics and physics classes are large-enrollment, lecture-based courses. By analyzing the combined data sets, we found the expected strong correlation between performance (final grade) in the mathematics course and performance in the physics course. We analyze not only the predictive nature of the collected data, but also the impact of the various corrective measures on final grade. This analysis contributes to an integrated evaluation of the current programs which could lead to an assessment-based initiative to offer strategic guidance to incoming students, better placing them for academic and career success in their selected STEM disciplines.

Student-to-student interactions are foundational to many active learning environments, but are most often studied using qualitative methods. Network analysis tools provide a quantitative complement to this picture, allowing researchers to describe the social interactions of whole classrooms as systems. Past results from introductory physics courses have suggested a sharp division in the formation of social structure between large lecture sections and small studio classroom environments. Extending those results, this study focuses on calculus-based introductory physics courses at a large public university with a heavily commuter and nontraditional student population. Community detection network methods are used to characterize pre- and post-course collaborative structure in several sections, and differences are considered between small and large classes. These results are compared with expectations from earlier findings, and comment on implications for instruction and further study.

Since Fall 2019 we have been reforming both our algebra and calculus-based introductory physics courses with the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) approach. As expected, each academic year, students are initially resistant to the approach. In this talk we will discuss specifics of the resistance to ISLE expressed by students in our calculus based introductory physics course and the quantitative effects of "pep talks" and institutional change sessions. We will also explore possible improvements to our implementation of the ISLE approach to mitigate resistance particularly from students who have already encountered non-ISLE physics.

A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author's publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.

A new online video resource named Freshman Physics Classroom (FPC) was developed by a team in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Texas A&M University to supplement calculus-based introductory physics courses. This article describes the development of this resource and reports the results from the first term of deployment, spring 2017, for student performance on both course examinations and the Brief Electricity & Magnetism Assessment (BEMA). The video modules received a high approval rating (>85%) from students according to anonymous clicker surveys administered twice over the course of the semester during lectures. Data from midterm exams show that students who engaged with the resource tended to outperform students who did not make use of the FPC video modules. Distributions of exam scores indicate that students with partial understanding of a subject from the course (lectures, recitations, and so forth) benefited from engagement with the video modules. Students from the spring semesters of 2015–2017 showed nearly identical levels of conceptual knowledge according to pre-testing conducted using BEMA, where spring 2015 and spring 2016 were used as a control group. Normalized gains were higher on average for those students who made use of the FPC video modules than for those who did not. Overall, the FPC video modules demonstrated a positive influence on student conceptual understanding and problem solving ability.

When learning physics, students need more than just an understanding of mathematical and physical concepts. Integrating the two fields is crucial, as research indicates that students often struggle even when they have a strong grasp of both. In this paper, we use the heat equation as an example from higher education. Given the importance of the gradient and the Laplacian in the heat equation, as well as fluency and flexibility in using multiple external representations, this study investigates students’ reasoning about the gradient and the Laplacian of a function within different function representations in mathematics and physics contexts. To do so, we designed isomorphic open-response questions, administered as paper-and-pencil tests to 190 first-year students who were taking calculus-based introductory physics courses and multivariable calculus courses during their second semester. These students were enrolled in physics, mathematics, engineering, and bioengineering programs. We found that students face conceptual challenges with both the gradient and the Laplacian. Student difficulties with interpreting the gradient may be related to an incomplete understanding of steepness in graphical representations of functions of two independent variables. Moreover, their understanding of the Laplacian is limited. While context did not significantly affect students’ reasoning in terms of the types of difficulties they encountered, the proportion of students facing these difficulties, and their tendency to link or discuss more than one aspect of a concept, we did find context-specific prevalence of graphical, algebraic-symbolic, or linguistic descriptions. Students used linguistic descriptions more frequently in a physics context. We observed varying abilities to express the meaning of concepts in different answer representations. Linguistic descriptions of concepts proved particularly challenging for both concepts and contexts. Our findings provide insight into students’ understanding of two concepts related to the 2D heat equation.

Magnetism and Ampère's law is a common subject in most calculus-based introductory physics courses. Many textbooks offer examples to calculate the magnetic field produced by a symmetric current by using Ampère's law.1 These examples include the solenoid and the toroidal solenoid (sometimes called a torus; see Fig. 1), which are used in many applications, including the study of plasmas.

This paper is centered on getting students to understand the nature of science (NOS) by considering historical material in relation to modern philosophers of science. This paper incorporates the methodology of contrasting cases in the calculus-based introductory physics course on optics and modern physics. Students study one philosopher all semester as a group project and report regularly on how their philosopher would view the subject matter of the course. Almost all of the students were able to argue successfully on the final examination about all three philosophers. Students become aware that the same textual material can be viewed in a variety of ways. The answers that students give about the NOS have become clearer at the end of the course.

This paper describes the major pedagogical elements of Workshop Physics, an activity-based approach to teaching calculus-based introductory physics courses. Some of these elements are incorporated into a sample class that draws on highlights of activities designed for a special unit on “Oscillations, Determinism and Chaos.” In this sample class participants work with a physical pendulum system that can be set into motion at small or large angles with and without eddy damping. Later this system can be reconfigured so that a driving torque and spring torques can be applied to it. Certain combinations of the damping torque and drive frequency can force the system into chaotic behavior. The motions of this chaotic physical pendulum are studied using a computer-based rotary motion detection system and compared to iterative spreadsheet models that take the torques on the system into account theoretically. Conclusions are drawn about the suitability of the unit on chaos by introductory physics students taking Workshop Physics courses.

The lack of diversity and the under-performance of underrepresented students in STEM courses have been the focus of researchers in the last decade. In particular, many hypotheses have been put forth for the reasons for the under-representation and under-performance of women in physics. Here, we present a framework for helping all students learn in science courses that takes into account four factors: (1) the characteristics of instruction and learning tools, (2) student characteristics, (3) implementation of instruction and learning tools, and (4) the students’ environments. While there has been much research on factor 1 (characteristics of instruction and learning tools), there has been less focus on factor 2 (students’ characteristics, and in particular, motivational factors). Here, we focus on the baseline characteristics of introductory physics students obtained from survey data to inform factor 2 of the framework. A longitudinal analysis of students’ motivational characteristics in two-semester introductory physics courses was performed by administering pre- and post-surveys that evaluated students’ self-efficacy, grit, fascination with physics, value associated with physics, intelligence mindset, and physics epistemology. We found that female students reported lower levels of self-efficacy, fascination, and value associated with physics, and held a more “fixed” view of intelligence in the context of physics compared to male students. Female students’ fascination and value associated with physics decreased significantly more than males’ after an introductory physics course sequence. In addition, females’ view of physics intelligence became more “fixed” compared to males’ by the end of an introductory physics course sequence. Grit was the only factor on which females reported averages that were equal to or higher than males throughout introductory physics courses. The findings inform the framework and have implications for the development and implementation of effective pedagogies and learning tools to help all students learn.

Choosing a system of interest and identifying the interactions of the system with its environment are crucial steps in applying the relation between work and energy. Responses to problems that we administered in introductory calculus-based physics courses show that many students fail to recognize the implications of a particular choice of system. In some cases, students do not believe that particular groupings of objects can even be considered to be a system. Some errors are more prevalent in situations involving gravitational potential energy than elastic potential energy. The difficulties are manifested in both qualitative and quantitative reasoning.

Despite efforts to engage students in the traditional lecture environment, faculty in Georgia Southern University’s Physics Department became dissatisfied with lecture as the primary means of instruction. During the fall semester of 2006, our department began adapting the studio model to suit the needs of introductory calculus-based physics students at our institution. A studio course seamlessly integrates the lecture and laboratory courses into a single course, devoting much of the class time to active, collaborative, student-centered learning. An emphasis was placed on replacing traditional lectures with interactive, technology enriched class periods designed around the various learning styles. New teaching materials were created so that old laboratory assignments, very “cook-book” in nature, could be replaced with new inquiry-based laboratories. Assessment indicated students enrolled in the studio courses experience greater success in achieving the desired learning outcomes than those students enrolled in the traditional lecture courses. As of the fall semester of 2008, all sections of the introductory calculus-based physics courses at Georgia Southern University are taught utilizing the newly adapted studio model.

The Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA), developed by Chabay and Sherwood, was designed to assess student understanding of basic electricity and magnetism concepts covered in college-level calculus-based introductory physics courses. To evaluate the reliability and discriminatory power of this assessment tool, we performed statistical tests focusing both on item analyses (item difficulty index, item discrimination index, and item point biserial coefficient) and on the entire test (test reliability and Ferguson's delta). The results indicate that BEMA is a reliable assessment tool.

This study examines a course in which students use two writing activitiesand collaborative group activities to examine the conceptual structure ofthe calculus-based introductory Physics course. Students are presented withtwo alternative frameworks; pre-Galilean Physics and Newtonian Physics. Theidea of the course design is that students would at first view the frameworksalmost in a theatrical sense as a view of a drama involving a conflict of actors;Aristotle, Galileo, Newton and others occurring a long time ago. As participantspassing through a series of interventions, the students become aware that theframeworks relate concepts from different parts of the course and learn to evaluatethe two alternative frameworks. They develop a scientific mindset changing theiroutlook on the course material from the viewpoint that it consists of a tool kit ofassorted practices, classified according to problem type, to the viewpoint that itcomprises a connected structure of concepts.