Introductory Calculus-based Physics Research Articles

Utilizing network analysis to explore student qualitative inferential reasoning chains

Over the course of the introductory calculus-based physics course, students are often expected to build conceptual understanding and develop and refine skills in problem solving and qualitative inferential reasoning. Many of the research-based materials developed over the past 30 years by the physics education research community use sequences of scaffolded questions to step students through a qualitative inferential reasoning chain. It is often tacitly assumed that, in addition to building conceptual understanding, such materials improve qualitative reasoning skills. However, clear documentation of the impact of such materials on qualitative reasoning skills is critical. New methodologies are needed to better study reasoning processes and to disentangle, to the extent possible, processes related to physics content from processes general to all human reasoning. As a result, we have employed network analysis methodologies to examine student responses to reasoning-related tasks in order to gain deeper insight into the nature of student reasoning in physics. In this paper, we show that network analysis metrics are both interpretable and valuable when applied to student reasoning data generated from . We also demonstrate that documentation of improvements in the articulation of specific lines of reasoning can be obtained from a network analysis of responses to reasoning chain construction tasks. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Evolution of grades and social comparison concern within an introductory physics course

This study investigates the evolution and associations between exam grades and social comparison concern (SCC) among students in an introductory calculus-based physics course. We begin with a descriptive characterization of midterm and final exam scores as well as pre-post SCC scores, including the concurrent evolution of these scores during the course. We hypothesize a feedback loop in which changes in SCC scores are mediated by exam grades, and changes in exam scores are mediated by SCC scores. We employ a structural equation model to determine whether the data are consistent with these hypotheses. Results indicate that there were significant within-student changes in the relative grade standing from exam to exam and that changes in SCC scores depended on both the pre-SCC scores and scores on the first midterm exam. Further, we find evidence that exam scores partially mediate the association between pre- and post-SCC scores, and in turn, post-SCC scores partially mediate associations between midterm and final exam scores, though the mediation effects are somewhat small, comprising 5%–10% of the total effects between exam scores and SCC. We also find that while SCC scores are somewhat correlated with exam scores, they are only very weakly correlated with nonexam grade components, consistent with the idea that exam scores (rather than nonexam scores) are driving changes in SCC and vice versa. Overall, the results provide empirical, correlational evidence to motivate further experimental investigation into a hypothesized dynamic and iterative feedback loop in which student concern about ability or performance compared to others (SCC) can either negatively or positively interfere with student performance on exams.1 MoreReceived 5 January 2023Accepted 28 March 2023DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.19.010129Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasDiversity & inclusionLearning environmentPhysics Education Research

Relating students’ social belonging and course performance across multiple assessment types in a calculus-based introductory physics 1 course

Relating students’ social belonging and course performance across multiple assessment types in a calculus-based introductory physics 1 course

Equitable approach to introductory calculus-based physics courses focused on problem solving

Introductory calculus-based mechanics (“Physics 1”) is an important gateway course for students desiring to pursue a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career. A major challenge with this course is the large spread in the students’ incoming physics preparation. This level of preparation is strongly predictive of a students’ performance because of the overlap between Physics 1 and high school physics courses. Because the level of students’ incoming preparation is largely determined by the quality of their high school physics courses, Physics 1 can amplify K–12 educational inequities and be a barrier for marginalized students wishing to pursue a STEM career. Here, we present a novel introductory course design to address this equity challenge. The design and implementation are based on the concept of deliberate practice as applied to learning real-world problem solving. Students explicitly practice research-identified decision-based skills required for problem solving in the context of solving real-world problems. The problems used in the course and their solutions have little resemblance to what students encounter in high school physics, thereby reducing the dependence of course performance on the high school physics preparation. Versions of this course were taught at a highly selective private and a lightly selective public university. The students who took the course learned the physics content knowledge they needed for future courses, particularly in engineering, and their problem-solving skills improved substantially. Furthermore, their course performance had much less correlation with their incoming physics preparation than was the case for the outcomes from the traditional Physics 1 courses at both institutions: in one case the correlation dropped from r=0.62 to 0.14, and on the other case the correlation dropped from r=0.56 to 0.26. These findings suggest this course design can be a more equitable version of the traditional Physics 1 course, and hence particularly beneficial for marginalized students.Received 8 August 2022Accepted 23 September 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.020124Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasDiversity & inclusionInstructional strategiesStudent preparationPhysics Education Research

Charging a Capacitor with Another Capacitor by Using Arduino

Resistor–capacitor (RC) circuit labs help students, but most courses don’t include them because of complications and cost. This work presents an easy and inexpensive Arduino-based lab on the charge and energy transfer between two capacitors with different values of the initial electric charge when they are connected through a resistor. Capacitors are electromagnetic devices widely described in calculus-based introductory physics courses. The concept of capacitance, the determination of the capacitance in planar and cylindrical geometries, the description of the series and parallel combinations of capacitors, or the evaluation of the electric energy stored in them are classic topics studied under electrostatic equilibrium conditions. Charge and discharge of a capacitor through a resistor is also studied in order to experimentally determine the capacitance of the capacitor or measure the electric charge stored in it. Energy balances in the charging and discharging processes of a capacitor are also widely discussed in textbooks. To get a better understanding of the basic concepts, other complex exercises are included in these courses. Among them, one can find the determination of the final charge and energy stored in each of the two capacitors, with different initial charge states, which are combined in parallel. In addition, the study of the charge through a resistor of a discharged capacitor by using a charged capacitor is also a classical exercise when one studies in depth the RC circuit. However, lab exercises covering these last topics are lacking in introductory physics courses. This is mainly due to the need to use complex experimental setups to simultaneously handle various power sources and various multimeters.

Comparison of student performance between virtual and in-person modalities of introductory calculus-based physics

Physics educators keep adding many skill developments to science and engineering students during their education as individuals and groups including critical thinking, conceptual understanding, problem-solving, mathematical implementation, computational implementation, etc. Here, we are discussing how to reach and analyse students’ outcomes within the context of introductory calculus-based physics courses by investigating two different teaching modalities. We found that there is no significant impact of teaching modality on student learning. By performing two different assessments: chapter-ending midterm assessments and unit-based (three to four chapters) midterm assessments, shows that students can perform much better with short-time assessments in contrast to the long-time assessments. Further, we study any possible effects on students’ final grades from students’ prior knowledge of calculus and conceptual physics. This investigation shows that although there is no correlation between student’s prior proficiency in calculus the class performance, however, there is a correlation of conceptual physics understanding towards class performance.

Comparing the Effects of Cookbook and Non-Cookbook Based Lab Activities In a Calculus-Based Introductory Physics Course

I have compared the effects of Cookbook based lab activities with the impacts of doing lab inquiry based on a small introductory engineering physics course. Performance in lab activities that did and did not require the Cookbook procedure was compared using a final questionnaire from the participating students in that course. The population of students who did the lab in each scenario was the same because they enrolled in the same course. In the course, I planned five lab activities of three different types. The first type, which I call “Cookbook” activities (CB) were prepared and then completed by students. The second type of activities, which I call” Non- Cookbook” (NCB) were inquiry-based and orally guide. The final activity type was called “Both” and was a combination of two other activities. I investigated the activities in two dimensions: “scientific skills” and “general skills”. The results for scientific skills showed in NCB “Predicting” have improved. In CB, “Measuring the quantity” and “Sorting/classifying” have positive points of improving scientific skills. For general skills, in NCB, “Recalling concepts” and “Conceptual understanding” were improved. In CB, “Conceptual understanding” and “Scientific writing skills” and “Self-efficacy” were improved. “Writing the lab report” is a tough skill in NCB, while it is easy for CB.

Additional unexpected benefits of rewarding students for effective problem solving strategies: supporting gender equity in physics

An important goal of introductory physics courses is to encourage effective approaches to problem solving. To achieve this goal, many aspects of desired problem solving approach should be rewarded, e.g. via grade incentives rather than basing grades mainly or solely on correct final answers. Here we discuss findings of a study that suggests that shifting pedagogical emphasis to reward the process of problem solving approach rather than basing the grade primarily on the final answer may have an additional unexpected benefit of supporting gender equity in physics. Our study involves administering a previously-validated attitudes and approaches to problem solving (AAPS) survey in six large enrollment calculus-based introductory physics classes at a large research university in the United States. On average, women had a statistically significantly higher average AAPS score at the end of the instruction when compared with men. Moreover, on clusters of questions related to effective approaches to problem solving such as drawing diagrams and doing scratchwork, women had a significantly higher average score. Since drawing and scratchwork are part of a systematic approach to physics problem-solving, this finding suggests that women, on average, may take a more favourable approach to physics problem-solving when compared with men. Interview data with a subset of students corroborate this interpretation. Our findings suggest that awarding appropriate credit to the entire problem solving process, e.g. by giving credit for drawings and scratchwork, may support gender equity in physics. In particular, heavier reliance on open-ended questions on assessments, along with grading rubrics that are sensitive to the details of the problem-solving process, not only rewards the desired approaches to problem solving, but also supports gender equity since women are rewarded appropriately for their work. We encourage physics instructors to adopt instructional strategies that reward the problem solving process instead of only rewarding the product to ensure that students learn effective problem solving skills while also supporting a practice that is more equitable.

Students’ sense of belonging in introductory physics course for bioscience majors predicts their grade

Student sense of belonging in physics classes may not only play a key role in shaping course outcomes but also influence student persistence and future career aspirations. Prior research has shown that women have a lower sense of belonging than men in calculus-based introductory physics courses. However, prior research has generally not investigated students’ sense of belonging in introductory physics courses in which women are not underrepresented. We administered a validated survey to investigate the sense of belonging of 814 students and how it predicts student grades in a mandatory introductory physics course primarily for bioscience majors. In particular, we investigated how students’ sense of belonging predicts female and male students’ grade at the end of the mandatory physics course for bioscience majors using structural equation modeling. We found that women had a lower sense of belonging and grade than men in this course and that the students’ sense of belonging played a major role in predicting students’ grade in the course. In addition, while men’s sense of belonging significantly increased from the beginning to the end of the physics course, women’s sense of belonging did not significantly change by the end of the course.Received 11 October 2021Accepted 16 March 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.010139Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasDiversity & inclusionEpistemology, attitudes, & beliefsLearning environmentPhysics Education Research

Gender differences in test anxiety and self-efficacy: why instructors should emphasize low-stakes formative assessments in physics courses

Many prior studies have investigated female and male students’ self-efficacy (SE) in physics courses. However, test anxiety (TA) is rarely studied in the physics context, despite prior work suggesting it may play a detrimental role in the development of SE. In this study, we explore the relationships between SE, TA, and gender differences in introductory calculus-based physics performance. Although there has been research that uses TA and SE to predict student grades, no study to our knowledge has investigated this in the context of low- (e.g., homework and quizzes) and high-stakes (e.g., traditional exams) physics assessments. Using validated survey data and grade information, we compared the predictive power of SE and TA on student performance on a variety of assessment types. We found that there are gender differences in both SE and TA, as well as in high-stakes assessment outcomes. There were no gender differences in low-stakes assessment scores. Further, we found that models that control for SE and/or TA eliminate the predictive power of gender for high-stakes assessment outcomes. Finally, we found that SE partially mediates the effect of TA on high-stakes assessment outcomes. From these results, we make several suggestions for instructors that may alleviate the adverse effects of TA and make physics assessments more equitable and inclusive.

Integrating numerical modeling into an introductory physics laboratory

Traditional introductory physics laboratories typically focus on guided experimentation while neglecting essential aspects of the scientific practice including computational reasoning. While there is a broad consensus among physics faculty on the need to introduce undergraduate students to computation, its integration in physics curricula is far from adequate. In this article, we document the process of redesigning a calculus-based introductory physics laboratory course to incorporate computational modeling. We describe the instructional design and document students' and instructors' experiences and attitudes towards this new course. Despite some challenges, students identified numerical modeling as the most important and beneficial feature of the lab course. The computational tools allowed students to engage in more complex and realistic experiments than conventional laboratories, which triggered their interest and kept them engaged in the task. Results from instructor interview data corroborate the positive perceived aspects of student attitudes towards the course.

Comparing Science and Engineering Students Using the Force Concept Inventory in Introductory Physics Courses

This work is intended to analyze and compare the performance of two groups of students on the understanding of force and motion concepts using the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). The FCI test serves questions on basic Newtonian concepts where the answers inclyde the correct response and commonly misconceived alternatives. The FCI test was implemented twice as pre and post-tests for two introductory calculus-based physics courses offered at the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Oman for students mainly from the Colleges of Sciences, Education and Agriculture and the students from the College of Enginerring in the Spring 2017 and Spring 2018 semesters. These courses cover the traditional first-year level kinematics and dynamics in translational and rotational motions based on the same syllabus and the same textbook. Hake's normalized gain, defined as the change in class averages divided by the maximum possible increase, was used to compare the students'performances. The normalized gains for both groups of students were in the low gain category. Female students in both courses performed better on the FCI in general, but the difference was only statistically significant in the course offered to Science students.

Effect of gender, self-efficacy, and interest on perception of the learning environment and outcomes in calculus-based introductory physics courses

Current learning environments in introductory calculus-based physics influence all students' physics-related motivational belief in a negative way and are more detrimental for female students than male students.

Utilizing peer teaching and reflection on low-stakes quizzes to improve concept learning outcomes in introductory calculus-based physics classes

There are a number of different research-based teaching methods that instructors can use to improve student learning outcomes. This work examines a modification of peer quizzing that introduces a reflection element. Students take individual quizzes and then are allowed to redo part of the quiz while working with a partner. By allowing the students to choose which problems they will redo, the students must pause and reflect on which concepts (problems) they do and do not feel confident about. The results show that there is a clear benefit to introducing weekly quizzes as measured by the Hake gain score on concept assessment tests. Further, a multivariate least squares regression indicates that a student’s gain score can be predicted by their exam mean, quiz mean, and their mean improvement on the quiz redo. Thus, students who score above average on their quiz redos will also show above average concept assessment gains. An analysis of when and how the students are changing their answers demonstrates that students across the spectrum (both high- and low-achieving) benefit from the quiz redo and that all students are engaged in teaching their peers. Finally, we see evidence that it is not single students teaching their peers, but rather that peer instruction is bidirectional and can even result in situations where two wrongs make a right. Overall, these results suggest that interventions aimed at students with low quiz redo scores for their quiz grade may have a significant impact in helping student learning.

The Scourge of Online Solutions and an Academic Hertzsprung–Russell Diagram

We report on preliminary results of a statistical study of student performance in more than a decade of calculus-based introductory physics courses. Treating average homework and test grades as proxies for student effort and comprehension, respectively, we plot comprehension versus effort in an academic version of the astronomical Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (which plots stellar luminosity versus temperature). We study the evolution of this diagram with time, finding that the “academic main sequence” has begun to break down in recent years as student achievement on tests has become decoupled from homework grades. We present evidence that this breakdown is likely related to the emergence of easily accessible online solutions to most textbook problems, and discuss possible responses and strategies for maintaining and enhancing student learning in the online era.

Gendered performance differences in introductory physics: A study from a large land-grant university

Studies examining gender differences in introductory physics show a consensus when it comes to a gender gap on conceptual assessments; however, the story is not as clear when it comes to differences in gendered performance on exams. This study examined whether gendered differences exist on midterm and final exams in introductory physics courses and if such differences were correlated with a gender difference in final course grades. The population for this study included more than 10 000 students enrolled in algebra- and calculus-based introductory physics courses between Spring 2007 and Spring 2019. We found a small but statistically significant difference, with a weak effect size, in final letter grades for only one out of four courses: algebra-based mechanics. By looking at midterm exam grades, statistically significant differences were noted for some exams in three out of four courses, with calculus-based electricity and magnetism being the exception. In all statistically significant cases, the effect size was small or weak, indicating that performance on exams and final letter grades was not strongly dependent on gender. As an added dimension examining gendered differences, we investigated if differences exist when accounting for instructor gender. Additionally, a questionnaire was administered in Fall 2019 to more than 1600 students in both introductory sequences to explore students’ perceptions of performance, class contributions, and inclusion. We observed some differences between students’ perception of their performance and contribution when grouped by gender, but no difference on perception of inclusion.Received 2 June 2020Accepted 4 January 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.17.010106Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasAssessmentDiversity & inclusionProfessional TopicsLower undergraduate studentsPhysics Education Research

Epistemology, socialization, help seeking, and gender-based views in in-person and online, hands-on undergraduate physics laboratories

Undergraduate physics laboratory course structures have been identified in policy reports for novel design innovations to meet the needs of a diverse and growing student population. To this end, an online, hands-on laboratory option was implemented at a large, public university for introductory physics students using the iOLab device. To determine whether students in this new course structure had similar perspectives to their in-person counterparts in terms of select attitudinal measures, a quasiexperimental, observational quantitative study was undertaken to measure students’ epistemological views as well as their beliefs about socialization and help seeking in online and in-person laboratory environments. Undergraduate students who were enrolled in calculus-based introductory physics (N=998) were surveyed in the second half of the semester to elicit their epistemological beliefs about physics laboratory work and their views on social engagement and academic help seeking in the laboratory. Parametric and nonparametric comparisons of central tendency were employed to measure differences between students in the in-person and online laboratories, as well as gender differences and associated interaction effects. Students showed no overall differences in attitudes related to epistemological and help seeking beliefs. There were significant differences related to views of socialization; students taking in-person physics laboratories valued socialization more than students taking the course online. Gender differences in epistemological and help seeking beliefs were identified overall, however, these differences were no longer significant when examining the interactions of laboratory type and gender. This finding suggests that self-selection into laboratory type may diminish gender gaps in affective domains by allowing students to choose the laboratory structure that meets their learning and logistical needs. In terms of physics epistemology, socialization and help seeking in the laboratory may not be as important to students’ perceptions of physics knowledge acquisition as previously thought. This study provides insights into the feasibility of online, hands-on laboratory experiences to meet the affective goals articulated in in-person laboratories, as well as institutional recommendations for advising students to select courses that match their individual learning styles.Received 23 February 2020Accepted 15 July 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020116Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasDiversity & inclusionEpistemology, attitudes, & beliefsLearning environmentPhysics Education Research

Synchronous versus asynchronous online teaching of physics during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study compares synchronous versus asynchronous online teaching in an introductory calculus-based physics class. Like many schools, our institution transitioned to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. We held optional synchronous online sessions during the original class time, and approximately half of our students were regular attendees. In the study, we look at how students’ grades changed after the transition. While students who attended the synchronous sessions saw an average test grade drop of 3.5%, students who did not attend saw a drop of 14.5%. The students who attended also saw a larger gain the standard Force Concept Inventory pre/post assessment: 56% versus 43%. We also created a survey to gauge the students’ perceptions of the course difficulty and workload. The survey showed that students who did not attend the synchronous sessions found the course more difficult and felt they spent more time on the class than those who attended. These findings lead to our recommendation that future online offerings should require mandatory synchronous participation.

Retention of conceptual learning after an interactive introductory mechanics course

The cyclic format of the undergraduate physics curriculum depends on students' ability to recall and utilize material covered in prior courses in order to reliably build on that knowledge in later courses. However, there is evidence to suggest that people often do not retain all, or even most, of what they learned previously. How much information is retained appears to be dependent both on the individuals' approach to learning as well as the style of instruction. In particular, there is evidence to suggest that active engagement techniques in the classroom can improve students' retention of the material over time. Here, we report the findings of a longitudinal investigation of students' retention of conceptual understanding as measured by the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) following a first-semester, calculus-based introductory physics course, which features significant active engagement in both lecture and recitation. By administering the FMCE at the end of a first-semester physics course and again at the beginning of the subsequent second-semester physics course, we examine students' knowledge retention over time periods ranging from 1-15 months. We find that the shift in students' FMCE scores between these two courses is positive but corresponds to a small effect size, indicating that students retained effectively all of their conceptual learning (as measured by the FMCE). This finding largely persists even as the length of the gap between the two courses increases. We also find that, when breaking out students' performance on individual questions, the majority of students maintain their score on individual questions. Averaged over all questions, roughly a fifth of the students switched their answers from right to wrong or wrong to right on any given item.

Why female science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors do not identify with physics: They do not think others see them that way

Students' perception about whether others see them as a physics person plays an important role in their physics identity; female students in calculus-based introductory physics are less likely to report feeling recognized as a physics person than male students.