Jason J. B. Harlow

PHOTOMETRIC MONITORING OF BRIGHT BE STARS. III. 1988-89 AND 1992-95

We report long-term photometric (BV) observations of 23 bright, active Be stars made in 1988 and 1989 and 1992 and 1995 with the 0.4m telescope at the University of Toronto. Cumulative light curves, including observations made earlier at the University of Toronto, and with the Automatic Photometric Telescope Service in Arizona, are presented for several of the stars. Many of the stars show cyclic variations of up to 0.2 in V and B on time scales of a few years, as well as variations on time scales of about a day.

Textbook Use in the Sciences and Its Relation to Course Performance

There are limited studies with conflicting results examining textbook use and student performance at the university level. To learn more, we surveyed instructors and over one thousand students in 12 undergraduate introductory science courses. The majority (77%) of the students reported reading the textbook either “often” (>75% of the assigned reading) or “sometimes” (25%–75% of the assigned reading). Those who read “often” had better final marks those who read “sometimes,” but surprisingly, those who reported “rarely” reading the textbook did as well as those who read “often.” Perceptions of the usefulness of the textbook were generally more favorable in courses in which some marks were based solely on the readings. We conclude that there appears to be different types of learners: some may need to read the textbook “often” to do well, while others do not.

Compressed-format compared to regular-format in a first-year university physics course

We compare student performance in two sessions of a large first-year university physics course, one with a normal 12-week term and the other with a compressed 6-week term. Student performance is measured by the normalized gain on the Force Concept Inventory. We find that the gains for the regular-format course are better than the gains for the compressed-format course, and while the differences in gains are small they are statistically significant. Not accounted for are the differences in effectiveness of the different instructors in the two versions of the course.