Introductory Undergraduate Course Research Articles

Plot Twist: Changing the Story in Graphing Skills with an Open-Ended Approach

Two of the most fundamental skills that students acquire in introductory undergraduate physics laboratory courses are how to accurately plot data and interpret the physical meaning of linear graphs. We redesigned our graphing skills lab with an open-ended approach designed to promote inquiry in graphical analysis and to address specific areas of weakness in students’ understanding of graphs. Students had to decide on their own how to graph data in order to promote understanding of linear relationships between variables and slope. Students completing the new open-ended lab developed and retained better graphing skills than students that were taught the lab with a more traditional cookbook approach.

Sequence Similarity: An inquiry based and "under the hood" approach for incorporating molecular sequence alignment in introductory undergraduate biology courses

Sequence Similarity: An inquiry based and "under the hood" approach for incorporating molecular sequence alignment in introductory undergraduate biology courses

Improving exam performance in an undergraduate statistics course for at-risk students through peer tutoring

Peer tutoring is an effective method of improving undergraduate students’ academic performance, especially for those at-risk for poor grades. Peer tutoring has seldom been explored in undergraduate statistics, a difficult but required course for many college majors. The current study investigated the benefits of peer tutoring for 180 demographically-diverse undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory psychology statistics course at an urban public university. We investigated the predictive value of attendance at peer tutoring sessions for in-class examination performance. We also studied the role of help-seeking and self-efficacy. Results indicated that peer tutoring attendance was associated with higher grades for in-class examination among at-risk students. Help-seeking and self-efficacy were not associated with in-class examination scores. Peer tutors can help at-risk students increase scores in statistics courses. Departments offering undergraduate introductory statistics courses should allocate resources to allow for funding of peer tutoring programs.

OpenFING: A Project based on a Digital Library of Recorded Courses

The OpenFING Project is an initiative by students for students, based on the creation and use of a digital video library of higher education courses, where students record video from standard lectures. The project attempts to address issues such as overcrowded lecture halls and students who work full time and thus cannot attend normal lectures. Today OpenFING seeks its consolidation along with an undergraduate introductory course on audiovisual and multimedia production. The project must be considered as a basis on which professors and students can develop teaching and learning innovations respectively, including different computer tools to support teaching and learning. In this article we describe the current status of OpenFING, six years after its creation; we describe the first study of how students and teachers perceive the initiative; and we conclude suggesting further developments.

Integrating Computer Programming into Introductory Physics Courses

Computing has become essential in virtually all physical fields, used for tasks such as modelling complex systems and analyzing data. As a result, computer programming competence is now considered a default requirement for physics research. Additionally, computer programming requires critical thinking and problem solving skills – both of which are also essential for physics and other rigorous disciplines. Thus, learning to program at the undergraduate level not only facilitates students’ ability to apply physical principles to solving problems, but also boosts marketable skills valuable in a more general job market. However, little emphasis is placed on computer literacy in the introductory courses of undergraduate physics curricula. Physics students interested in pursuing undergraduate research will often need to either take a computer science course or learn a computer programming language independently. In either case, it takes the student a long time to gain an understanding of the language and be able to apply it to relevant problems. This workshop is geared toward instructors and teaching assistants in introductory undergraduate physics courses with a working understanding of and experience using at least one programming language (e.g., Python, MATLAB, C++) for scientific applications. The intention is to introduce methods and provide suggestions for more effectively introducing students to scientific programming and integrating it into the physics curriculum.

The longitudinal effects of STEM identity and gender on flourishing and achievement in college physics

BackgroundDrawing on social identity theory and positive psychology, this study investigated women’s responses to the social environment of physics classrooms. It also investigated STEM identity and gender disparities on academic achievement and flourishing in an undergraduate introductory physics course for STEM majors. One hundred sixty undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory physics course were administered a baseline survey with self-report measures on course belonging, physics identification, flourishing, and demographics at the beginning of the course and a post-survey at the end of the academic term. Students also completed force concept inventories, and physics course grades were obtained from the registrar.ResultsWomen reported less course belonging and less physics identification than men. Physics identification and grades evidenced a longitudinal bidirectional relationship for all students (regardless of gender) such that when controlling for baseline physics knowledge: (a) students with higher physics identification were more likely to earn higher grades; and (b) students with higher grades evidenced more physics identification at the end of the term. Men scored higher on the force concept inventory than women; although no gender disparities emerged for course grades. For women, higher physics (versus lower) identification was associated with more positive changes in flourishing over the course of the term. High-identifying men showed the opposite pattern: negative change in flourishing was more strongly associated with high identifiers than low identifiers.ConclusionsOverall, this study underlines gender disparities in physics both in terms of belonging and physics knowledge. It suggests that strong STEM identity may be associated with academic performance and flourishing in undergraduate physics courses at the end of the term, particularly for women. A number of avenues for future research are discussed.

Exploring undergraduates’ conceptions of elasticity, within a plate tectonics context, before and after experience with rock’s elastic behavior

The elastic rebound theory is a fundamental explanatory geoscience construct introduced in most introductory undergraduate geoscience courses. Classroom experience, supported by a recent case study of undergraduate students’ model-building activities, indicates that learning this theory tends to be incomplete, in spite of instruction employing external representations and other analogies. Using conceptual metaphor theory as a lens to investigate such instruction, this project sought to document students’ understandings of elasticity within a plate tectonics context, and identify and describe learning demands that must first be addressed for analogies and models to be effective. The project also evaluated the efficacy of an instructional intervention that provides learners with an experience with rocks that most daily encounters do not: the elastic deformation of rocks. Using a nonequivalent groups design of 81 undergraduate students enrolled in a 100-level geoscience course, this work revealed that prior to instruction all participants were familiar with the concept of elasticity. However, only 35.8% were able to demonstrate an understanding aligned with the scientific consensus. Relevant to the elastic rebound theory, just over 50% conceptualized tectonic plates and Earth’s upper interior as being composed of rocks, and 67.9% identified tectonic plates as elastic. However, indicative of a shallow understanding, only 18.5% recognized that rocks, which make up tectonic plates, behave elastically. The instructional intervention that allowed students to bend rocks resulted in a statistically significant increase in the number of students who conceptualized rocks as well as other solids as elastic on the posttest.

Exposing Practical, Psychological, and Pedagogical Shadow Sides of Experiential Learning

This article is based first-person experience with experiential learning (EL) practices in an undergraduate introductory management course. We consider how a challenging EL activity, based on volunteering during recovery from a catastrophic flood event, exposed three shadow sides of EL. These shadow sides of EL, which often remain hidden to educators, are practical, psychological, and pedagogical. We provide a characterization of each of these shadow sides and outline strategies for managing them. We also discuss the general applicability of our insights, including tentative theoretical extensions to Kolb’s EL theory. We conclude by considering the potential for the shadow sides of EL to emerge in circumstances that are less confronting and extreme than those encountered by our students.

Bringing Service Into Science: Community-Engaged Service-Learning for Undergraduate and Graduate Epidemiology Students

Service-learning is an effective and important teaching pedagogy for public health students that bridges classroom learning with meaningful practice in an effort to meet a community’s needs. Undergraduate and graduate epidemiology courses provide unique opportunities for experiential service-learning in public health education. However, best practices and effective examples for implementing and evaluating such experiences have been limited, leaving instructors seeking guidance. The purpose of this study was to describe the methods for developing and evaluating community-partnered service-learning activities in introductory graduate and undergraduate epidemiology courses. We present qualitative and quantitative findings from student assessment evaluations of three distinct service-learning activities over three separate semesters. Findings suggest that service-learning activities are highly valued by students and often represent their first experiences in population health research and primary data collection. Our findings also indicate that these initial experiences are opportune times for students to learn effective and important lessons for conducting health research as well as meaningfully engaging in their community. For health course instructors, the authors provide a timeline for developing such service-learning projects and describe techniques for overcoming challenges that arise in service-learning activity development and implementation.

The Hawking temperature, the uncertainty principle and quantum black holes

In 1974, Stephen Hawking theoretically discovered that black holes emit thermal radiation and have a characteristic temperature, known as the Hawking temperature. The aim of this paper is to present a simple heuristic derivation of the Hawking temperature, based on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The result obtained coincides exactly with Hawking’s original finding. In parallel, this work seeks to clarify the physical meaning of Hawking’s discovery. This article may be useful as pedagogical material in a high school physics course or in an introductory undergraduate physics course.

Click-On-Diagram Questions: a New Tool to Study Conceptions Using Classroom Response Systems

Geoscience instructors depend upon photos, diagrams, and other visualizations to depict geologic structures and processes that occur over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. This proof-of-concept study tests click-on-diagram (COD) questions, administered using a classroom response system (CRS), as a research tool for identifying spatial misconceptions. First, we propose a categorization of spatial conceptions associated with geoscience concepts. Second, we implemented the COD questions in an undergraduate introductory geology course. Each question was implemented three times: pre-instruction, post-instruction, and at the end of the course to evaluate the stability of students’ conceptual understanding. We classified each instance as (1) a false belief that was easily remediated, (2) a flawed mental model that was not fully transformed, or (3) a robust misconception that persisted despite targeted instruction. Geographic Information System (GIS) software facilitated spatial analysis of students’ answers. The COD data confirmed known misconceptions about Earth’s structure, geologic time, and base level and revealed a novel robust misconception about hot spot formation. Questions with complex spatial attributes were less likely to change following instruction and more likely to be classified as a robust misconception. COD questions provided efficient access to students’ conceptual understanding. CRS-administered COD questions present an opportunity to gather spatial conceptions with large groups of students, immediately, building the knowledge base about students’ misconceptions and providing feedback to guide instruction.

Chirality-2: Development of a Multilevel Mobile Gaming App To Support the Teaching of Introductory Undergraduate-Level Organic Chemistry

Mobile technology is increasingly prevalent in higher education. Chemistry-related software applications (apps) on touchscreen computers are emerging as a popular platform in many areas, including in the chemistry classroom. In this work, a new game-based app designed for hand-held and portable touch-controlled devices is presented. Chirality-2 covers multiple aspects of introductory undergraduate organic chemistry. The app allows users to earn chemistry-type medals related to his or her score for each stage, track progress, and post scores and compete with peers on social media. The app is free to download on both the iOS and Android operating systems and aims to help reinforce important chemical concepts necessary for introductory undergraduate chemistry courses worldwide. The target audience includes teachers and students at the final year of high school and introductory undergraduate level.

A Comparison of Online, Video Synchronous, and Traditional Learning Modes for an Introductory Undergraduate Physics Course

While the equivalence between online and traditional classrooms has been well-researched, very little of this includes college-level introductory Physics. Only one study explored Physics at the whole-class level rather than specific course components such as a single lab or a homework platform. In this work, we compared the failure rate, grade distribution, and withdrawal rates in an introductory undergraduate Physics course across several learning modes including traditional face-to-face instruction, synchronous video instruction, and online classes. Statistically significant differences were found for student failure rates, grade distribution, and withdrawal rates but yielded small effect sizes. Post-hoc pair-wise test was run to determine differences between learning modes. Online students had a significantly lower failure rate than students who took the class via synchronous video classroom. While statistically significant differences were found for grade distributions, the pair-wise comparison yielded no statistically significance differences between learning modes when using the more conservative Bonferroni correction in post-hoc testing. Finally, in this study, student withdrawal rates were lowest for students who took the class in person (in-person classroom and synchronous video classroom) than online. Students that persist in an online introductory Physics class are more likely to achieve an A than in other modes. However, the withdrawal rate is higher from online Physics courses. Further research is warranted to better understand the reasons for higher withdrawal rates in online courses. Finding the root cause to help eliminate differences in student performance across learning modes should remain a high priority for education researchers and the education community as a whole.

Oblique elastic collisions of two smooth round objects

The scattering angles and speeds resulting from an off-centre elastic collision of a smooth puck or sphere incident on a second one at rest on a frictionless surface are analysed in terms of the impact parameter and mass ratio. Particular attention is paid to finding simple special cases for the final angles or the relations between them that could be explored in homework problems or laboratory experiments. The level of analysis is accessible to an introductory undergraduate physics course.

Zombies: a simple discrete model of the apocalypse

ABSTRACTA simple discrete-time two-dimensional dynamical system is constructed and analyzed numerically, with modelling motivations drawn from the zombie virus of popular horror fiction, and with suggestions for further exercises or extensions suitable for an introductory undergraduate course.

Using analog instruments in Tracker video-based experiments to understand the phenomena of electricity and magnetism in physics education

Tracker is a piece of freeware software, designed to use video recorded images of the motion of objects as input data, and has been mostly applied in physics education to analyse and simulate physical phenomena in mechanics. In this work we report the application of Tracker to the study of experiments in electricity and magnetism using analog instruments for electrical signal measurements. As we are unable to directly video-track the motion of electrons in electric circuits, the angular deflections of the instruments’ pointers were video captured instead. The kinematic variables (angular position as a function of time) had to be related to the electrical ones (voltages and currents as a function of time). Two well-known experiments in physics teaching, the RC circuit for charging and discharging a capacitor and Faraday electromagnetic induction, were chosen to illustrate the procedures. The third experiment analysed and modeled with Tracker was the rather well-known electromagnetic retardation of disk- or cylinder-shaped magnets falling inside non-magnetic metallic pipes. Instead of metallic pipes we used an aluminum plate with an arrangement of a couple of parallelepiped-shaped magnets falling parallel to the plate. In the three cases studied, the experimental and the Tracker simulation results were in very good agreement. These outcomes show that it is possible to exploit the potential of Tracker software in areas other than mechanics, in areas where electrical signals are involved. The experiments are inexpensive and simple to perform, and are suitable for high school and introductory undergraduate courses in electricity, magnetism and electronics. We propose the use of Tracker combined with analog measuring devices to explore further its applications in electricity, magnetism, electronics and in other experimental sciences where electrical signals are involved.

Evaluating the flipped classroom: A randomized controlled trial

ABSTRACTDespite recent interest in flipped classrooms, rigorous research evaluating their effectiveness is sparse. In this study, the authors implement a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effect of a flipped classroom technique relative to a traditional lecture in an introductory undergraduate econometrics course. Random assignment enables the analysis to eliminate other potential explanations of performance differences between the flipped and traditional classrooms, while assignment of experimental condition by section and lesson enables improved statistical precision. The authors find that the flipped classroom increases scores on medium-term, high-stakes assessments by 0.16 standard deviation, with similar long-term effects for high-performing students. Estimated impacts are robust to alternative specifications accounting for possible spillover effects arising from the experimental design.

An Evaluation of the Pair Discussion Component of Interteaching

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the impact of the pair discussion component of interteaching on student quiz performance for two sections of an introductory undergraduate course in behavior analysis with a total of 49 students. An alternating treatment design was used whereby the pair discussion was alternated in a quasi-random fashion with a whole-class discussion throughout the semester. In both experimental conditions, all other components of interteaching were in effect. Feedback on quiz performance was provided immediately upon quiz submission. Results show a slight advantage for the pair discussion condition, but no statistically significant differences between the two conditions. Social validity results show a preference for whole-class discussion. These results are discussed in light of the limitations and strengths of the study, and we outline directions for future research.

Changing epistemological beliefs with nature of science implementations

Explicit nature of science instruction can stop the typical decline of student epistemological beliefs within an introductory undergraduate astronomy course.

Bridging High School and Introductory Undergraduate Courses in Geographic Information Science and Technology

This article presents the findings of a study to determine the degree of consistency in what is taught and learned in high school and college-level introductory courses in geographic information science and technology (GIS&T). A content analysis identified sixteen topics that are generally representative of the knowledge, skills, and abilities developed in introductory undergraduate courses. The findings were used to propose a standard college-level survey course in GIS&T that could inform future efforts to introduce more academically rigorous GIS&T coursework in high schools, such as through the Advanced Placement Program.