Using Analogies to Learn Introductory Physics

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.

Being able to contextualise and solve complex problems is a highly valued skill in STEM graduates—a skill which we strive to nurture in our students. Since its introduction into undergraduate teaching, laboratory teaching has been used to consolidate students conceptual understanding, develop their practical skills and inculcate an evidence based problem solving approach. Much work has been done to achieve these goals with varying degrees of success. Here we present an alternative to the regular introductory level physics laboratory experiments which enhances students learning by focusing on problem solving rather than simply following detailed instructions. Working in small groups, students were able to achieve the aims of the experiment through self and peer-instruction. Similar experiments can be easily and cost effectively implemented in any standard secondary school and undergraduate teaching laboratory. These can be adjusted to target the development of a wide range of specific skill sets as well as deepen students understanding of different physics principles and concepts. Our approach will enable the teaching laboratory to truly fulfil the function with which it was originally conceived.

Drawing appropriate diagrams is a useful problem solving heuristic that can\ntransform a problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving\nit. One major focus while helping introductory physics students learn effective\nproblem solving is to help them understand that drawing diagrams can facilitate\nproblem solution. We conducted an investigation in which two different\ninterventions were implemented during recitation quizzes in a large enrollment\nalgebra-based introductory physics course. Students were either (i) asked to\nsolve problems in which the diagrams were drawn for them or (ii) explicitly\ntold to draw a diagram. A comparison group was not given any instruction\nregarding diagrams. We developed rubrics to score the problem solving\nperformance of students in different intervention groups and investigated ten\nproblems. We found that students who were provided diagrams never performed\nbetter and actually performed worse than the other students on three problems,\none involving standing sound waves in a tube (discussed elsewhere) and two\nproblems in electricity which we focus on here. These two problems were the\nonly problems in electricity that involved considerations of initial and final\nconditions, which may partly account for why students provided with diagrams\nperformed significantly worse than students who were not provided with\ndiagrams. In order to explore potential reasons for this finding, we conducted\ninterviews with students and found that some students provided with diagrams\nmay have spent less time on the conceptual analysis and planning stage of the\nproblem solving process. In particular, those provided with the diagram were\nmore likely to jump into the implementation stage of problem solving early\nwithout fully analyzing and understanding the problem, which can increase the\nlikelihood of mistakes in solutions.\n

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.

Students’ genuine understanding (conceptual and operational) of physics is the goal of the majority of physics educators, who agree that the introductory physics course should possess the following features: reflect the currently adopted understanding of nature (the state in the subject matter), employ scientific method (philosophy of science) and expose it to the learner, and reflect our current understanding of the learning process taking place (research in physics education). We bring here two examples of suggested changes, the result of research in physics education, geared to improve the content of the introductory physics course in accordance with the above mentioned principles. More detailed information is available in the quoted publications.

This study investigates how the beliefs and values of physics faculty influence their choice of physics problems for their students in an introductory physics course. The study identifies the goals these instructors have for their students, the problem features they believe facilitate those goals, and how those features correspond to problems they choose to use in their classes. This analysis comes from an artifact-based interview of 30 physics faculty teaching introductory calculus-based physics at a wide variety of institutions. The study concludes that instructors' goals and the problem features they believe support those goals align with research-based curricular materials intended to develop competent problem solvers. However, many of these instructors do not use the beneficial problem features because they believe these features conflict with a more powerful set of values concerned with clarity of presentation and minimizing student stress, especially on exams.

To what extent should technology and applied physics be included in introductory physics courses? What is the proper balance between pure and applied physics? Should physics teachers devote precious time to socially relevant issues like nuclear power and alternative sources of energy? How much time should be spent, if any, on applications that are more relevant to the student's world like cars, music, television and refrigeration? Does including applications reduce or enhance student understanding of important classical topics? A response to these questions must be based on goals for physics teaching, on knowledge of how students learn and on the nature of the physics discipline. Since there is not enough time to teach everything in an introductory course, priorities must be determined.

Drawing appropriate diagrams is a useful problem solving heuristic that can transform a given problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving it. A major focus while helping introductory physics students learn problem solving is to help them appreciate that drawing diagrams facilitates problem solution. We conducted an investigation in which 111 students in an algebra-based introductory physics course were subjected to two different interventions during recitation quizzes throughout the semester. They were either (1) asked to solve problems in which the diagrams were drawn for them or (2) explicitly told to draw a diagram. A comparison group was not given any instruction regarding diagrams. We developed a rubric to score the problem-solving performance of students in different intervention groups. Here, we present some surprising results for problems which involve considerations of initial and final conditions.

Drawing appropriate diagrams is a useful problem solving heuristic that can transform a give problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving it. A major focus while helping introductory physics students learn problem solving is to help them appreciate that drawing a diagram facilitates problem solution. We conducted an investigation in which 111 students in an algebra-based introductory physics course were subjected to two different interventions during recitation quizzes throughout the semester. They were either (1) asked to solve problems in which the diagrams were drawn for them or (2) explicitly told to draw a diagram. A comparison group was not given any instruction regarding diagrams. We developed a rubric to score the problem-solving performance of students in different intervention groups. We investigated two problems involving electric field and electric force and found that students who draw expert-like diagrams are more successful problem solvers and that a higher level of detail in a student's diagram corresponds to a better score.

In the 1930s, the teaching staff of the University of Chicago devised a clever way to deliver experimental data to their introductory students without meeting them in the laboratory. The university’s curriculum included a required Introductory Course in the Physical Sciences. There were probably too many students to allow for a standard face-to-face laboratory experience. In this article, I will discuss the solution that was reached about 80 years ago, and muse on how it can be used during a time when a pandemic makes regular laboratory instruction impossible. Their approach may be useful to present-day teachers trying to deliver a laboratory experience to students in introductory physics courses without face-to-face instruction.

Students’ learning performance and its correlation with exam scores are examined using a unique factor: the day the online quiz was submitted. By collecting information on quizzes through an online learning management system for each subject in an introductory physics course for first-grade medical students, student learning performance is thoroughly analysed and compared with the final exam score. The results show a statistically significant negative correlation between the exam score and quiz submission day. Furthermore, by combining several parameters that are potentially related to the exam score, we are able to evaluate the student’s learning attitude in more detail. Based on the results, we discuss the negative effects of procrastinating behaviour and successful learning practices.

Tests of formal operational reasoning and mathematics knowledge have been correlated with performance measures in introductory physics courses. A score based on collected homework was also used in our analyses in an attempt to control for the confounding effects of study effort. Course totals were broken down into separate scores for performance on test problems and performance on conceptual questions. A multiple-regression analysis indicates that the test of formal operational reasoning is a stronger predictor of course performance than the mathematics pre-test, particularly for the conceptual portion of the course totals. Possible reasons for failure in some studies to find significant correlations of course performance with measures of formal reasoning are discussed.

Since 1983, the Maryland University Project in Physics and Educational Technology (M.U.P.P.E.T.) has been investigating the implication of including student programming in an introductory physics course for physics majors. Many significant changes can result. One can rearrange some content to be more physically appropriate, include more realistic problems, and introduce some contemporary topics. One can begin training the student in professional research-related skills at an earlier stage than is traditional. An interesting point to note is that the inclusion of carefully considered computer content requires an increased emphasis on qualitative and analytic thinking.