The Impact of the History of Physics on Student Attitude and Conceptual Understanding of Physics

1. The Impact of the History of Physics on Student Attitude and Conceptual Understanding of Physics SARAH GARCIA, APRIL HANKINS & HOMEYRA R. SADAGHIANI Department of Physics, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA sarahcgarcia@csupomona.edu, ajhankins@csupomona.edu, hrsadaghiani@csupomona.edu INTRODUCTION DATA RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Often the pre and posttest show negative shift in introductory physics student attitude and interest in learning physics [1]. If the mathematical aspects of introductory physics courses bombard students with equations and calculations, some students, especially those with little to no background in science or math, can either lose interest in the class or just get lost. Some studies have suggested the use of the history of physics in teaching the concepts can influence student overall interest in learning science [2] [3]. We have also investigated this technique to measure students learning of basic Newtonian Mechanics in the context of a course on the history and the development of scientific ideas from Aristotelian to Newtonian mechanics. Would it help with conceptual understanding of some everyday physics experience? Would it shift student attitude and opinion of learning physics as well as creating an appreciation of the science? Conceptual Gain: Figure 1 shows student normalized gain for FCI which is calculated by the equation above. Data indicates the following: All majors showed reasonable conceptual gain and the class average gain was comparable to CPP average FCI gain in introductory physics courses over the past three years [6]. The History and Non-science majors had the highest conceptual gain. We had two math majors in the class; because of the small statistics and opposing results for the two data points (+60% and -67%) we did not include that on the graph on Figure 1. Attitude Shift: The results of CLASS (Table 1) shows a positive shift in five out of the eight scored categories for student attitude with significant shift on “Personal Interest” (13%) and “Sense Making/Efforts” (10%). The overall average shift was also a positive three percent. In summary, teaching physics in the context of its history led to some conceptual gain in our study; it had a positive impact on students’ interest in learning physics and their ability to connect their understanding to real world experiences. COURSE & STUDENT POPULATIONS This course discusses the historical development of scientific ideas, the introductory concepts of physics with an emphasis on Newtonian mechanics. It is offered as an upper division general education for all majors or as an advanced elective for physics majors. Twenty eight students from a variety of majors with different backgrounds in science and math were enrolled in the course (see Figure 1) . The textbook used was Physics, the Human Adventure: From Copernicus to Einstein and Beyond by G. Holton & S. Brush. Figure 1. The average Normalized Gain on FCI for different majors REFERENCES [1] E. Redish, J. Saul, and R. Steinberg, Am J Phy. 66 (3), 212-224 (1998) [2] H. Erlichson. “Collateral Readings in the Philosophy and History of Physics for the Introductory Science and Engineering Physics Course,” Am. J. Phys. 34 (6) (1966) [3] G. Kortemeyer & C. Westfall, “History of Physics: Outing the Hidden Curriculum?” Am. J. Phys. 77 (10) (2009) [4] D. Hestenes, M. Wells, and G. Swackhamer, “The Force Concept Inventory,” Phys. Teach. 30, 141 (1992) [5] W. Adams et al., “ New Instrument for Measuring Student Beliefs About Physics and Learning Physics: The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS),” Phys Rev. ST Phys. Education Research2 (2006) [6] S. McCauley, N. Abramzon, & H. Sadaghiani, “Pilot Enrichment Courses to Enhance Student Success in Freshman Physics,” Provost Teaching Symposium (2009) METHODOLOGY Table I.The average favorable data for CLASS with standard error in parentheses. • Data acquisition began with two Nationally known surveys given at the beginning of the course and again at the end of the quarter as pre/post-tests in order to measure student attitude change and to see if they acquired different techniques for applying Newtonian concepts. • Concept Assessment: • Force Concept Inventory (FCI) test [4], to measure the students’ ability to apply the concepts of Newtonian Physics to everyday life. • Attitude Survey: • The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) [5], to measures students’ initial perception of learning physics. • Additional Course Survey was designed to collect demographic data such as gender, major, ethnicity, math and science background, and job status. • The course was delivered in an online/hybrid format and the Course Survey contained questions regarding student experience, attitude, and what they liked and disliked of these formats in this and other courses. AKNOWLEDGMENTS This project was funded by The Women’s Education Equity Act research Apprenticeship Program (WEEA). We would like to thank Dr. Barbara Burke for her support. Figure 2. shows the average shift from Table 1 in each category from CLASS