Philip M. Sadler

Success in introductory college physics : The role of high school preparation

High school teachers and college physics professors differ in their beliefs concerning the extent to which a high school physics course prepares students for college physics success. In this study of 1,933 introductory college physics students, demographic and schooling factors account for a large fraction of the variation in college physics grades at 18 colleges and universities from around the nation. Controlling for student backgrounds, taking a high school physics course has a modestly positive relationship with the grade earned in introductory college physics. More rigorous preparation, including calculus and 2 years of high school physics, predicts higher grades. Students who had high school courses that spent more time on fewer topics, concepts, problems, and labs performed much better in college than those who raced through more content in a textbook-centered course. College professors should recognize that a substantial fraction of the variation observed in the performance of students they teach can be explained by the range in effectiveness of their pre-college preparation, not simply innate ability. Although students without a high school physics course often do well in college physics, they are more likely to be academically stronger, with more educated parents, having previously taken calculus, and taking physics in their sophomore or junior year in college.

Engineering Competitions in the Middle School Classroom: Key Elements in Developing Effective Design Challenges

Engineering challenges that involve both the design and building of devices that satisfy constraints are increasingly employed in precollege science courses. We have experimented with exercises that are distinguished from those employed with elite students by reducing competition and increasing cooperation through the use of tests against nature, large dynamic ranges in performance, initial prototype designs, and alternative methods of recording and presenting results. We find that formulating easily understood goals helps engage students in fascinatingly creative processes that expose the need for a scientific methodology. Such challenges engage male and female students equally, helping to erase the gender disparity in familiarity with the technology and skills common to physical science.

The Influence of Teachers' Knowledge on Student Learning in Middle School Physical Science Classrooms.

This study examines the relationship between teacher knowledge and student learning for 9,556 students of 181 middle school physical science teachers. Assessment instruments based on the National Science Education Standards with 20 items in common were administered several times during the school year to both students and their teachers. For items that had a very popular wrong answer, the teachers who could identify this misconception had larger classroom gains, much larger than if the teachers knew only the correct answer. On items on which students did not exhibit misconceptions, teacher subject matter knowledge alone accounted for higher student gains. This finding suggests that a teacher’s ability to identify students’ most common wrong answer on multiple-choice items, a form of pedagogical content knowledge, is an additional measure of science teacher competence.

Out-of-School Time Science Activities and Their Association with Career Interest in STEM

Spurred by concerns about an inadequately sized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce, there has been a growing interest in out-of-school time (OST) science activities as a means to foster STEM career interest. This study examines the association between OST science activities and STEM career interest in university through a logistic regression model and the calculation of prototypical odds ratios. The analysis addresses two main research questions: What is the correlation among different forms of OST activities? And, controlling for student demographic and background variables, what specific forms of OST activities are associated with STEM career interest in university? The study uses data from the ‘Persistence Research in Science and Engineering’ survey (n = 6882), which employs a nationally representative sample of university students enrolled in introductory English courses. Results indicate that students’ participation in OST activities, as well as their middle school interest in science and mathematics and their gender, plays a significant role in university career interest in STEM. Conclusions suggest that making OST clubs and competitions and the inclusion of non-fiction and science fiction within English Language Arts programmes may be beneficial to the development of students in STEM careers. Limitations include the paucity of research examining which students participate in these activities and what specific features or characteristics benefit them.

The Astronomy and Space Science Concept Inventory: Development and Validation of Assessment Instruments Aligned with the K–12 National Science Standards

We report on the development of an item test bank and associated instruments based on those K–12 national standards which involve astronomy and space science. Utilizing hundreds of studies in the science education research literature on student misconceptions, we have constructed 211 unique items that measure the degree to which students abandon such ideas for accepted scientific views. Piloted nationally with 7599 students and their 88 teachers spanning grades 5–12, the items reveal a range of interesting results, particularly student difficulties in mastering the NRC Standards and AAAS Benchmarks. Teachers generally perform well on items covering the standards of the grade level at which they teach, exhibiting few misconceptions of their own. Teachers dramatically overestimate their students’ performance, perhaps because they are unaware of their students’ misconceptions. Examples are given showing how the developed instruments can be used to assess the effectiveness of instruction and to evaluate the impact of professional development activities for teachers.

Weighting for Recognition: Accounting for Advanced Placement and Honors Courses When Calculating High School Grade Point Average:

Honors and advanced placement (AP) courses are commonly viewed as more demanding than standard high school offerings. Schools employ a range of methods to account for such differences when calculating grade point average and the associated rank in class for graduating students. In turn, these statistics have a sizeable impact on college admission and access to financial aid. The authors establish the relationship between the grade earned and type of high school science course taken for 7,613 students by modeling their later performance in an introductory college course. The sample is drawn from more than 100 introductory science courses at 55 randomly chosen college and universities. Accounting for variations in college grading systems, strong evidence is found in favor of the practice of adding bonus points to students’ high school course grades in the sciences, namely, on a 4-point scale, 1 point for AP courses and .5 for honors courses.

Gender Differences in the High School and Affective Experiences of Introductory College Physics Students

The disparity in persistence between males and females studying physics has been a topic of concern to physics educators for decades. Overall, while female students perform as well as or better than male students,1 they continue to lag considerably in terms of persistence. The most significant drop in females studying physics occurs between high school and college.2 Since most female physicists report that they became attracted to physics and decided to study it further while in high school, according to the International Study of Women in Physics,3 it is problematic that high school is also the stage at which females begin to opt out at much higher rates than males. Although half of the students taking one year of physics in high school are female, females are less likely than males to take a second or Advanced Placement (AP) physics course.4 In addition, the percentage of females taking the first physics course in college usually falls between 30% and 40%.1 In other words, although you may see gender pa...

Traditional and Block Scheduling for College Science Preparation: A Comparison of College Science Success of Students Who Report Different High School Scheduling Plans

This study compares frequencies of instructional practices across differing scheduling plans (Traditional and Block plans), and explores the association between high school scheduling plans and college science preparation, using introductory college science grades as the outcome measure. More than 7000 students enrolled in introductory college biology, chemistry, and physics were surveyed. No large difference was found when comparing the use of frequencies of instructional practices across scheduling plans. Regression models investigating associations between scheduling plans and college grades found significant, but small differences in predicted college grades for Traditional, 4:4, and Unique Block students; however, the analysis found two negative interactions on college grades linking alternate Block (AB) with HS science achievement and AB block with peer tutoring. Overall, the results indicate that Block scheduling plans do not appear to provide an advantage to students in terms of college preparation in science.

Visualization and Representation of Physical Systems: Wavemaker as an Aid to Conceptualizing Wave Phenomena

An understanding of wave mechanics is essential to making the leap from classical to quantum systems. Wavemaker is a simulation environment developed to reveal graphically the behavior of periodic systems using a series of increasingly sophisticated visualization tools. Individual particles in a many-particle system can be instrumented for study of kinematic behavior. Parametric representations reveal time-independent behaviors. Problems dealing with propagation, reflection, and Fourier synthesis are easily studied. Use with students has revealed that many students have preconceptions about the behavior of waves and that use of this software is helpful in connecting real to simulated systems, separating holistic behaviors from those of individual elements, identifying critical parameters, and making connections between variables that are used to describe and measure periodic systems.

Invisible Misconceptions: Student Understanding of Ultraviolet and Infrared Radiation.

The importance of nonvisible wavelengths for the study of astronomy suggests that student understanding of nonvisible light is an important consideration in astronomy classrooms. Questionnaires, interviews, and panel discussions were used to investigate 6–12 student and teacher conceptions of ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR). Alternative conceptions about the characteristics and human sensual perception of visible light, UV and IR, were observed in many students and in a subset of teachers. Instruction involving electromagnetic radiation should first address preexisting alternative conceptions, and conceptual questionnaires such as the one used here can help teachers to identify student ideas prior to instruction.