ANALYSIS OF THE GENERAL EDUCATION LEVEL OF SUBJECT COMPETENCE IN PHYSICS OF TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS BY ENTRANCE CONTROL RESULTS

Abstract

In this paper the analyzes of the general education level of subject competence from physics of the first year students of National Transport University by the entrance control results was performed. The entrance control from physics was carried out at the beginning of 2017‒2018, 2018‒2019 and 2019‒2020 academic years. The tasks for entrance control included the problems, complexity of which did not go beyond the limits of the program of physics for general education institutions of the standard level. The number of students who performed the tasks of entrance control from physics was 540 people. The analysis of the results of the entrance control revealed that most of the first year students had significant difficulties in solving even simple qualitative and quantitative physical problems. The latter indicates that the general education level of subject competence from physics of first year students turned out to be low enough. Thus, it leads to significant difficulties in studying general physics course of the technical university level.Among the reasons for such low results of students from entrance control in physics are the following: insufficient theoretical training level of students from the general education physics course, which is a necessary condition for solving simple physical problems; insufficient motivation of students to perform the tasks of entrance control. The following is suggested to improve the situation: during the current control, together with other forms, it is worth to use physical dictation, which will contribute to raising the theoretical training level of students from general physics course. In order to increase students’ motivation to perform the entrance control tasks from physics, a score for entrance control should be included into the students’ rating system in the first semester.