ࡱ> ?A>  bjbjT~T~ .(66:      8U a_uuufff   fffff  fp  fedPd/0_W!:XW!W! 0ffffff_ffffW!fffffffff : Academic Year 2009/10 Assessment Report Physics Department Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences The Physics Department at ڶ offers a B.S. and B.A. in Physics. We also offer introductory Physics classes for engineering, pre-medical and education majors. The ڶ Physics Dept. has a nationally endorsed Society of Physics Students SPS organization and places students into Physics graduate studies elsewhere, most recently our best graduate went to the Harvard University in Boston, last years student went to KU for graduate studies and the previous year student has just got accepted into Univ. of Colorado at Boulder. The majority of students taking our Physics courses are in accredited majors like engineering, education or chemistry; many of these test students acquisition of physics. Thus we aspire to numerical proof of good learned outcomes through systematic administration of standardized examinations which gives us our rank nationally. For our introductory courses at the 200- and 300-level, these exams are the AP tests at the B and C levels, respectively. For our undergraduate Physics majors we judge their performance by results from the GRE Physics test. Introductory Courses Assessment In this, the sixth year of our assessment testing, there was an extensive program of testing in 200 and 300 level classes using Advanced Placement questions for all students at the end of each class. In Physics 213, 214, 313, and 314 we used exams as described in previous years report but with different questions. Performances of tested students are summarized in the attached grid. Overall our 200 and 300 level physics class students performed well, with 51% of the students doing above the minimum required level. The results from these tests are what we have used to rank our students performance to a national average of mid B to upper C. The Spring 2009 semester was the first year we tested the incoming Physics 313 students for math proficiency, and this has continued in the Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 semesters. We found that only ~60% of the students were prepared mathematically for the class. This problem was then investigated and we found that the Math Calculus 1 and 2 class material was mismatched to the Physics curriculum. This problem has been corrected in the Fall 2009 semester and we saw a correlation in the students performance. In the Spring of 2011 based upon this and the suggestions of the Associate Provost Keith Pickus we are implementing restricting 300 level Physics to student who can demonstrate proficiency in the Math needed for the Physics class. In Physics 111, our conceptual physics course, we used the Force Concept Inventory as both pre- and post-test, and examined both final level of understanding and gain in understanding. On the pre-test, the average was 56%, and on the post-test, 65%, for an average gain in knowledge (defined as g = (post-pre)/(100-pre)) of 0.16. According to Hake, pre-test numbers in the .30s are typical in colleges and universities, so our students are typical of others; our gains are below average: he reports T = 0.230.04. Nevertheless, this years Physics 111 class performance is much better than three years ago which was only 0.08; this may be due to the fact that the new instructor who taught this class was performance demanding of the students and although there were complaints that she was hard and expected too much from the students it may be the reason that the students actually improved. Overall, the results were informative for preparations for future improvements. We think that this may be due to several reasons, not all of which apply to each class. Some of the problems can be solved straightforwardly: warning students ahead of time about the assessment exam; having some sort of incentive to do well; ensuring that the concurrent enrollment class uses a college-level textbook. We all agree that a major problem in 213 and 313 is lack of mathematical preparation: Though each course specifies a prerequisite (Math 112 and 242, respectively) many students ignore this requirement, which is not enforced institutionally but is changing in the spring 2011 semester. In addition 313 require either high school physics or Physics 151. Our plan to deal with this was to institute a pre-test which help us find a course material deficiency in Math that has been corrected. Eventually the goal is to require this exam for entering students to perform sufficiently well to be able to sign up for the class. The single biggest factor that affects the quality of learning is class size. At extremely large schools Lectures are done in 250 student classes by highly experienced faculty and then these students break down into smaller 20 person recitation and lab sections for interactive learning exercises. These recitation and lab sections are often taught by Graduate Teaching Assistants which we currently lack. An alternative is to have class sizes of 30 to 35 students for the 200 and 300 level introductory physics classes. This would be the single major factor that could dramatically improve student performance in standardized tests with national rankings. It would require a substantial increase in the Physics Dept. faculty size but any such improvements would be welcomed by the Engineering Depts. Also in the Spring 2010 semester there were 4 sections of Phys 313 with smaller class size. We clearly see that the smaller class size of <50 students had better performance than the previous Fall 2008 or Spring 2008 semesters before this was implemented, demonstrating a performance improvement of students with smaller class size. Graduating Senior Assessment We had five graduating seniors in the spring 2010 semester this year. Four of these student entered graduate school, four exceeded expectations on the GRE exam and the fifth did not take the exam.  Hake, R. R. (1998). Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. American Journal of Physics, 66, 64-74. 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