Physical Homework Research Articles

Unpacking the factors that influence secondary students’ attitudes towards physics in nine different countries - a cross-cultural analysis

It is crucial to comprehend the factors that affect attitudes towards physics to improve academic performance in the subject. This research aims to identify significant predictors of these attitudes by analysing the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study Advanced 2015 data from nine countries: the USA, Italy, Lebanon, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, and France. The study employs multiple regression analyses to examine the influence of predictive variables on students’ attitudes toward physics, taking into account weighting features a large-scale survey. The findings suggest that there are significant differences across cultures. In all the countries surveyed, female students appear to have a less favourable attitude toward physics than male students, making gender a significant factor. In most countries, students who spend more time on physics homework have a more positive attitude, highlighting the importance of outside-of-class engagement. The perception of engaging teaching and the value that students place on physics are solid and positive determinants of attitudes, emphasizing the role of instructional quality and relevance of the subject matter. These findings provide a better understanding of how different factors contribute to students’ attitudes toward physics and can help design targeted educational interventions.

初中物理作业减负增效的策略研究——以“双减”政策为背景

初中物理作业减负增效的策略研究——以“双减”政策为背景

SIMULATION-BASED AND VIDEO-BASED APPROACHES TO DIVERSIFYING PHYSICS HOMEWORK

Physics homework often boils down to solving end-of-chapter quantitative problems. For targeting different learning goals of physics education, different types of homework are needed. The aim of this research was to compare the effectiveness of simulation-based, video-based, and paper-and-pencil homework in developing an understanding about Newton’s laws and forming positive attitudes towards physics homework. 150 first-year students from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology at the University of Zagreb (Croatia) were randomly assigned to one of the three above-mentioned homework approaches. After, students had lectures and seminars on Newton’s laws, they were administered a pre-test. In the next three weeks, the students completed three homework assignments on Newton’s laws, after which they completed a post-test. For students from all three homework approaches a substantial improvement in conceptual understanding has been observed. Although the three approaches proved to be equally effective when it comes to developing understanding, the simulation-based approach was found to be superior when it comes to developing positive attitudes towards physics homework. If one controls for target knowledge, the modality of the homework assignment does not affect cognitive outcomes, but it does affect students’ attitudes towards homework. Keywords: conceptual understanding, experimental study, simulation-based homework, video-based homework

Effects of technologically-rich physics homework: findings from an experimental study

Students’ learning outcomes in physics are significantly affected by the quality of outside-of-classroom learning experiences. A rich source of these experiences may be the physics homework. In this study, the effects of technologically-rich physics homework were evaluated. To that end a pretest-posttest experimental design has been used. 67 first-year students from the First Bosniak Gymnasium were randomly assigned to one of the three homework approaches. In the control group students received conventional homework about work and energy. Within the simulation-based approach students were expected to interact with simulations to investigate work and energy phenomena, whereas in the video-based approach students learned by analyzing a video in which the teacher interacted with the same simulations as mentioned above. Based on analysis of covariance we could find that the between-group differences on the conceptual posttest were not statistically significant, F(2, 47)=0.59, p=0.56. At the same time, students who learned by interacting with simulations expressed significantly more positive attitudes towards homework, compared to students from the video-based group (mean difference=1.88, p=0.038), as well as compared to students from the conventional group (mean difference=2.02, p=0.03). Simulation-based physics homework may be a powerful tool for helping the students to reach important affective learning outcomes.

Improving the Effectiveness of Physics Homework: A Minds-on Simulation-Based Approach

Students spend much time in doing their physics homework. Whether this effort results in deep learning depends on the quality of the mere homework. Therefore, we designed a minds-on simulation-based approach to physics homework and conducted a pretest-posttest quasi-experiment to compare its effectiveness to the effectiveness of traditional homework. Our student sample consisted of 39 first year high-school students from Bosnia and Herzegovina. In two school hours, all students received the same lectures about gas laws. Next, the experimental group students solved simulation-based homework in which their planning of actions, execution of actions and self-reflection was supported by a carefully prepared worksheet and survey. The traditional group’s homework consisted of three textbook problems and covered the same content, which is gas laws. Through analysis of covariance it was shown that the minds-on simulation-based homework was significantly more effective in developing students’ understanding of gas laws than traditional homework. The experimental group students perceived the simulation-based homework as interesting, challenging and useful.

A user-transaction-based recommendation strategy for an educational digital library

The automated recommendation of content resources to learners is one of the most promising functions of educational digital libraries. Underlying strategies should take the individual progress of the learner into account to provide appropriate recommendations that are meaningful to the learner. If presented with appropriate assistance, learners will more likely engage in productive learning strategies, such as reading up on concepts and accessing preparatory materials, and refrain from unproductive behavior, such as guessing on or copying of homework. In this exploratory case study, we are analyzing transactional data within an educational digital library of online physics homework problems and learning content. The sequence of events starting with a learner failing to solve a particular problem, interacting with other online resources, and then succeeding on that same problem is used to identify potentially helpful resources for future learners. It was found that these “success stories” indeed allow for providing recommendations with acceptable accuracy, which, when implemented, may lead to more productive learning paths.

Comparing Student Behavior in Mastery and Conventional Style Online Physics Homework

We compared students' learning behavior when completing identical online calculus-based physics homework assignments organized in two ways. One was designed for mastery learning where content is divided into smaller units, and students are required to attempt the assessment once before accessing the content. Students can proceed to the next unit after passing the assessment either before or after studying the content. The second is a conventional design in which students first study a set of instructional materials equivalent to several mastery units then complete multiple assessment problems at once. Our major findings are: 1. in the mastery condition, students solved more problems correctly either immediately after studying the instructional content, or on attempts before accessing the instructional content; 2. for students who solved similar numbers of problems correctly, the mastery condition students spent significantly less time studying compared to the traditional condition students; and 3. students who did not pass mastery units on their initial assessment attempts spent similar amounts of time studying as traditional condition students.

Students’ internet access, internet self-efficacy, and internet for learning physics: Gender and grade differences

This paper aims to analyze the differences between internet facilities, internet usage purposes, internet self-efficacy (ISE), and internet perceptions in learning physics, regarding students’ gender and grade. A total of 798 senior high school students were surveyed randomly from 10 schools in the urban area of Lampung Province, Indonesia. The data were analyzed with Chi-square tests, t-test and ANOVA test for parametric, and Mann-Withney test and Kruskal-Wallis test for nonparametric. The results showed that by gender, female students were better at the ownership of computers and internet access via mobile phones. For the purpose of accessing internet, They were also identified more frequently in using internet for academic purposes, social media, and doing physics homework. Additionally, females were better at the perception about the benefit of the internet in learning physics. Besides, males were higher in using internet for entertainment and accessing physics’ video and animation. For experience and frequency in accessing internet and ISE, there were no significant gender differences found. Meanwhile, the differences were found between grades in some general usage as well as in ISE. Overall, the higher the students’ grade, the greater the percentage of students who use them, except in internet perception.

One Method for Inhibiting the Copying of Online Homework

Over the last several years online homework solutions have become ever more accessible to students. This is due in part to programs like Yahoo Answers, Chegg, publisher solution manuals, and other web resources that are readily available online. The student can easily search any physics homework problem posted on the web in a matter of seconds and have the solution. The results of this are an apparent increase in students copying the answers without solving the problem, which may lead to an increase in homework scores but a reduction in exam scores and an overall lower grade in the class. A secondary effect that may be observed is that tutoring centers, recitations, and supplemental instructor sessions have reduced student attendance. Some might say that the readily available solutions for homework systems such as MasteringPhysics (MP), WebAssign, etc. have greatly diminished them as a teaching tool, and for grading and assessing students’ performance in a course. It is the purpose of this paper to offer a possible solution for preventing students from potentially copying online homework solutions.

Semi-Automated Correction Tools for Mathematics-Based Exercises in MOOC Environments

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) allow the participation of hundreds of students who are interested in a wide range of areas. Given the huge attainable enrollment rate, it is almost impossible to suggest complex homework to students and have it carefully corrected and reviewed by a tutor or assistant professor. In this paper, we present a software framework that aims at assisting teachers in MOOCs during correction tasks related to exercises in mathematics and topics with some degree of mathematical content. In this spirit, our proposal might suit not only maths, but also physics and technical subjects. As a test experience, we apply it to 300+ physics homework bulletins from 80+ students. Results show our solution can prove very useful in guiding assistant teachers during correction shifts and is able to mitigate the time devoted to this type of activities.

Emotional Engineering

I want to talk about emotions. Well, I don’t really want to. Frankly, not having to deal with emotions was one of the attributes of engineering that attracted me to this field of study. I liked keeping interactions on an intellectual level. Answers to Math and Physics homework sets were cut and dried and the odd numbered ones could be found in the back of the book. There was security in knowing the right answer. However, despite the promise of clarity, even as an engineer, I found questions finding their way in, or their way out, questions that were rooted in my emotional landscape. Is this all there is? What do I want my life to be about? How am I making the world a better place by the work that I do? These weren’t academic questions for me; they were soul searching questions that challenged the core of my identity. Could I be an engineer and be whole, whatever that might mean? I’m proud of the work I have done to become an engineer, but there is something missing.

Draw Your Physics Homework? Art as a Path to Understanding in Physics Teaching

The persistent fear of physics by learners motivated the author to take action to increase all students’ interest in the subject via a new curriculum for introductory college physics that applies Greene’s model of Aesthetic Education to the study of contemporary physics, utilizing symmetry as the mathematical foundation of physics as well as the conceptual link between physics and the arts. The author describes the curriculum and suggests how students’ drawings and written commentaries can provide insights into students’ preferred learning modalities, promote understanding of abstract concepts through visualization, and reveal students’ preexisting attitudes toward science. Outcomes align with the goals of improving students’ attitudes toward physics, indicated by their comments, written work, and results of the Maryland Physics Expectations Survey.

Second-Generation Automatic Problem Grading

Recent years have seen widespread adoption of automatic grading of physics homework problems. Although first-generation homework management systems1–3 provide feedback and assign scores based only on the answers, problem-solving performance on exams seems to be no worse for students using these systems than for those who receive detailed comments from manually graded homework. Apparently immediate feedback, which encourages students to continue to work on a problem until they “get it right,” is as effective as detailed, but delayed, comments on a complete written solution. Second-generation homework systems should combine the two approaches by using immediate feedback in grading complete solutions.

The Engage Program: Implementing and Assessing a New First Year Experience at the University of Tennessee

AbstractThe Engage initiative at the University of Tennessee addresses the needs of entering engineering students through a new first year curriculum. The program integrates the engineering subject matter of the freshman year, teaches problem solving and design by application, and seeks to address the increased retention and graduation of engineering students. Noteworthy curriculum features of the Engage program include a hands‐on laboratory where students do physical homework to practice the concepts introduced in lectures, placing all freshman engineering students in a year‐long team design curriculum, and a team training course where engineering upperclassmen are trained in team facilitation techniques and placed as facilitators with the freshman design teams.The Engage program was piloted during the 1997–98 academic year with 60 students. In 1998–99, the program was scaled up to 150 students, and fully implemented with the entire freshman class of 465 students during the 1999–2000 academic year. Engage students have shown a significant increase in academic performance compared to students following a more traditional curriculum. Graduation statistics show the positive long‐term results of this effort.

Physics Homework Management: Using Hypercard to Generate Individualized Problem Sets

First Page

Recording physics homework solutions

Recording physics homework solutions

A new addition to the homework assignment: Demonstration–problems

Introductory physics homework problems done in conjunction with student-performed demonstrations in the UC Santa Barbara Physics Learning Center are described and evaluated. These demonstration–problems presently supplement the standard textbook assignment for 370 students from our physics for engineers and scientists courses. Students find them more enjoyable than their textbook problems. We view them as valuable exercises within a process approach to instruction and consistent with the developmental theory of Jean Piaget. Arguments are given regarding their potential for promoting intellectual development. Other advantages are also cited.

A physics homework course

First Page