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Student Experiences and Preferences for Equation Sheets
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Researchers in physics education have advocated both for including modeling in science classrooms as well as promoting student engagement with sensemaking. These two processes facilitate the generation of new knowledge by connecting to one’s existing ideas. Despite being two distinct processes, modeling is often described as sensemaking of the physical world. In the current work, we provide an explicit, framework-based analysis of the intertwining between modeling and sensemaking by analyzing think-aloud interviews of two students solving a physics problem. While one student completes the task, the other abandons their approach. The case studies reveal that particular aspects of modeling and sensemaking processes co-occur. For instance, the priming on the ‘given’ information from the problem statement constituted the students’ engagement with their mental models, and their attempts to resolve inconsistencies in understanding involved the use of external representations. We find that barriers experienced in modeling can inhibit students’ sustained sensemaking. These results suggest ways for future research to support students’ sensemaking in physics by promoting modeling practices.
Assessments are usually thought of as ways for instructors to get information from students. In this work, we flip this perspective and explore how assessments communicate information to students. Specifically, we consider how assessments may provide information about what faculty and/or researchers think it means to know and do physics, i.e., their epistemologies. Using data from students completing assessment questions during one-on-one think aloud interviews, we explore how assessment features did (or did not) impact student engagement with the assessment problems. We analyze video recordings and transcripts to infer the epistemological framings and resources students use while completing introductory-level physics problems. Students’ framings tended to be fairly stable, but when shifts occurred, they were triggered by a shift in epistemological resource, which can be activated by assessment feature. This work extends existing work on epistemological framing into the realm of assessment and allows us to consider the effects of assessments on our students’ understanding of physics teaching and learning.
Quality assessment of student learning is important in physics education. However, it can be challenging to construct assessments measuring students' understanding of concepts and elicit deeper levels of cognition during problem solving. Tests are common assessments, but students assume test questions will have a numeric or symbolic answer. This study analyzes test responses and reflections on a question without a numeric or symbolic answer from a calculus-based physics class. Though designed to test conceptual understanding, students' assumptions and expectations about test questions hindered their ability to accurately represent their understanding.We analyzed students' responses and short reflections on the problem by looking at ways students tried to solve the problem and their uncertainties when confronted by a non-traditional test question. Using a framework of epistemic resources, we found that students used a variety of resources to pursue a solution; though common patterns emerge that can inform instructors and physics education researchers.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate student conceptual understanding of fundamental transportation engineering concepts, focusing explicitly on geometric design. Geometric design is a critical element to all transportation engineering courses, encompassing essential concepts needed in current conventional roadway design. Clinical interviews with twenty students were used to investigate student understanding. Three broad areas of geometric design based conceptual misunderstanding have emerged from the initial analysis of the student interviews; including sight distance versus stopping sight distance misconceptions, inability to design horizontal curves, and increasing reliance on equations and previous homework examples to solve new problems. The results from this study can be used to assess current transportation engineering curriculum, and enlighten future researchers about the causes of conceptual difficulty.
Most students struggle when faced with complex and open-ended tasks because the strategies taught in schools and universities simply require finding and applying the correct formulae or strategy to answer well-structured, algorithmic problems. For students to develop their ability to solve ill-structured problems, they must first believe that standardized procedural approaches will not always be sufficient for solving engineering and scientific challenges. In this paper we document the range of beliefs university students have about problem solving. Students enrolled in a physics course submitted a written reflection both at the start and the end of the course on how they solve problems. We coded approximately 500 of these reflections for the presence of different problem-solving approaches. At the start of the semester over 50% of the students mention in written reflections that they use Rolodex equation matching, i.e., they solve problems by searching for equations that have the same variables as the knowns and unknowns. We then describe the extent to which students’ beliefs about physics problem solving change by the end of a semester-long course that emphasized problem solving via context-rich, multifaceted problems. The frequency of strategies such as the Rolodex method reduces only slightly by the end of the semester. However, there is an increase in students describing more expansive strategies within their reflections. In particular there is a large increase in describing the use of diagrams, and thinking about concepts first.
This paper describes ongoing research investigating student approaches to quantitative and qualitative problem solving in physics. This empirical study was conducted using a phenomenographic approach to analyze data from individual semistructured problem solving interviews with 22 introductory college physics students. The main result of the study is a hierarchical set of categories that describe the students’ problem solving approaches in the context of introductory physics.
This paper describes teaching enhancements the author used to improve student satisfaction ratings in three higher year undergraduate Mechanical Engineering units. Improvements to student satisfaction and feedback rates were obtained by applying Central Queensland University’s seven principles of good teaching and the author’s new innovative teaching approach, called the ‘4-point teaching and learning strategy’ to make red units green and good units excellent. The research question is to analyse how effective is the author’s 4-point teaching and learning strategy to student satisfaction and their learning journey. Student satisfaction ratings and attrition rates, as well as student grades are compared over a few years to identify trends. These approaches were presented to other engineering colleagues, some of whom employed them with an overall improvement in student learning being noticed in recent terms. This paper deals with the Scholarship of Teaching where an instructor uses a systematic approach and a rational framework employing the new 4-point strategy to make changes to unit delivery to improve student learning and satisfaction, as well as to reduce attrition.
Retention and transfer of learning is particularly important in the education of future engineers. Engineering majors are required to apply what they learn in their mathematics and physics courses to their engineering courses. We report on two studies. The first focuses on transfer from calculus to calculus-based physics. The second focuses on transfer from physics to engineering. We use a theoretical framework that distinguishes between two kinds of transfer processes. Based on this theoretical framework and using both qualitative and quantitative methods we examine the difficulties that learners have when they attempt to transfer their learning from mathematics to physics to engineering. Our results indicate that although students have the requisite calculus knowledge they have difficulties in applying this knowledge to physics and engineering courses. Our results also indicate that although learners see similarities between problems encountered in physics and engineering differences in notation and assumptions appear to impede transfer.
All engineering capstone courses are designed with the expectation that students will use knowledge they have obtained in prerequisite classes to design an engineering solution. However, students often come into the design course without mastery of the prerequisite material. Faculty then use class time to review this material, reducing the time that can be spent on the objectives of the course such as engineering design, professional correspondence, and improving technical writing and presentations skills. To solve this problem, we have created a set of online instructional materials that can be used by students in an Environmental Engineering capstone course to ensure that they have mastered the prerequisite material before and while engaging on the design project. In this case the students designed a water treatment system to remediate acid mine drainage entering the headwaters of a local river. This design required knowledge of mass balances, reactor design, acid/base chemistry and particle setting. To test for mastery of these prerequisite topics, a pre-quiz was given on these topics during the first week of class. These quizzes were graded for mastery and returned to the students. The students were directed to a related online video that reviewed the specific engineering topic covered by each question. The students then took a quiz on the same topics during the 3rd week of the course that counted as part of their grade. We will discuss how the use of the videos affected their mastery of the material, as assessed by their post- Test performance. In addition, we will discuss how the students interacted with these online modules as assessed by student surveys and focus groups. Finally we will include the benefits and costs from the faculty perspective. This will allow us to make suggestions for applying this technique to other disciplines within engineering and other Environmental Engineering courses.
The conventional and pervasive written exam format used in undergraduate engineering courses, while practical, may be neither the most effective assessment tool in determining a student's ability to perform in the professional arena, nor an effective tool to motivate students to understand the fundamental concepts on which the exam is based. The effectiveness and practicality of employing team-based oral examinations in lieu of individual written midterm exams in an undergraduate course will be presented in this paper. Several of the disadvantages of written exams are addressed with the protocol developed for the oral exams. These protocols are defined and discussed. Aggregate student performance on the oral exams and the written final exam from the experimental group are presented and examined. Effectiveness of the teambased oral exams is quantitatively assessed through a comparison of student performance between the control (individual written exams) and the experimental group (team-based oral exams). The final exam average for the two groups is provided as a point of comparison to determine assessment impact. Additionally, the effectiveness of the team-based oral exams from the students' perspective is quantitatively and qualitatively assessed using results from a 5-point Likert survey and candid comments. The subjective experiences from the student and professor perspectives are presented. Survey results indicate an increase in the effort, retention and recall of knowledge of the students, a finding also supported by the final exam average comparison. The team-based oral exams appear to serve as a more effective tool than the traditional testing method to evaluate students' learning and facilitate their deeper understanding of the course.
Although many students demonstrate considerable aptitude in manipulating equations and variables within academic environments, research consistently shows that they lack conceptual understanding; the deficit accounts for their difficulties in choosing appropriate equations or understanding the basic phenomena that undergird such equations. This study investigates undergraduate understanding of sight distance and stopping sight distance in introductory transportation courses. Although sight distance and stopping sight distance are fundamental concepts in transportation engineering, students demonstrate considerable difficulty in understanding these concepts and often rely on previous experience or preferred equations without relating them to specific phenomena of interest. Suggested approaches are offered for transportation engineering educators to improve their students' conceptual understanding.
Engineering students utilize basic math skills in all engineering courses, some courses more than others. Dynamic Systems I (MECH 330) students must apply knowledge from trigonometry, calculus, differential equations, and linear algebra to develop mathematical equations which define a dynamic system (electrical, mechanical, and/or fluid). The defining differential equations are then solved. System characteristics are extracted from the mathematical equations and can be analyzed to understand and control the system's behavior. Since MECH330 is mathematically intensive, a math review (covering the subjects specific for the course) is given on the first and/or second course meeting. Subsequently, a math skills test is given on the third course meeting. Over several semesters, scores on the math skills test were correlated to the student's final course grade. With nearly 200 students studied, the data indicates that students who do well on the math skills test do not necessarily do well in the course. But, students who do well in the course, do well on the math skills test.
Prerequisite testing as a tool to gauge incoming
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