Analysis of Retention of Conceptual Learning After an Interactive Introductory Physics Course
Learning physics at first can be difficult for many students, but it is vital for many students so physics educators must learn how to successfully teach the laws of physics. This research paper on “Retention of Conceptual after an interactive introductory physics course,” studies how interactive introductory physics courses affect the retention rates of physics information. It was written by Bethany R. Wilcox, Steven J. Pollock, and Daniel R. Bolton who have received a Masters from University of Colorado Boulder, a PhD from Stanford, and a PhD from University of Washington, Seattle respectively. These authors are all faculty of the University of Colorado at Boulder and are researchers specializing in physics education. The paper was on Arxiv.org since February 18, 2020 and Arxiv.org is a Cornell University database containing pre-published articles from physics, electrical engineering, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, mathematics, computer science, statistics, and economics. Arxiv.org is free to the public and was founded in 1991 by Paul Ginsparg and is maintained by Cornell University, submissions are verified to be relevant to the subject areas through a moderation process (Arxiv.org, 2020). This rhetorical analysis examines the structure and materials used by Wilcox B. R. et al and to determine if interactive introductory physics courses are more effective for the retention of conceptual learning.
The purpose of this article is to inform physics educators about the effectiveness of interactive introductory physics courses which pertain to Physics I and Physics II. This study examines the effectiveness of interactive introductory physics courses the retention of conceptual learning in physics by recording student’s scores on a test named the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation or FMCE during both pre-instruction and post-instruction of Physics I courses and at the post-instruction of Physics II courses, there was also a Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment or BEMA which is given post-instruction of Physics II courses (Wilcox, B. et al, 2020). The authors also used previous semesters of FMCE scores from introductory physics courses to make comparisons between interactive and non-interactive physics courses.
This article is intended for current physics educators that include college professors, adjuncts, and possibly high school teachers to improve the quality of physics education. Although this study focuses on introductory physics, this study can be applied to other fields such as mathematics or other sciences as the researchers of this study had also applied research from an educational psychology study involving business courses(Wilcox B R, et al,2020). Thus interactive introductory courses will not only benefit students in physics related fields but nearly any field that requires a deeper understanding of concepts with longer retention of concepts.
This article follows the traditional IMRAD format and begins with an abstract that provides an introduction, some methods, and the results (Swales, J. 2019). In the first move, Wilcox et al talk about the cyclic way physics is taught with physics concepts being described at a surface level in introductory courses then revisited in succeeding courses with more depth, however the traditional style used were interactive less lectures and activities making students rely more on rote memorization. The authors then talk about the established research into retention rate of learning which are in the educational psychology field and the application of psychological research to an introductory physics course. The authors reference a study involving business students which found more robust retention of concepts from deeper understanding through embodied course activities(Wilcox, B R. et al, 2020). By referencing the educational psychology study the authors establish an ethos and show that their study is consistent with other findings.
In the second move the authors describe the need for interactive courses for introductory physics to increase the retention of conceptual ideas in physics. The importance of retaining conceptual ideas in physics is displayed as introductory physics is usually a prerequisite for engineering and science courses, thus if the students do not successfully retain concepts the professors of the succeeding classes may have to waste time backtracking. Wilcox et al do not explicitly suggest more research as their study is a measure of interactive courses in physics, but they do point out that their results may be influenced by the place they conducted their study which is at the University of Colorado at Boulder, since the university has scored higher than the national average in physics courses(Wilcox, B R. et al, 2020). The authors may suggest conducting another study similar to this one to show the consistency of greater retention with interactive physics courses.
In the third move, the authors highlight the benefits that the interactive physics courses have through the data provided by three graphs which show that across the two semesters of FMCE scores collected and the analysis of previous semesters that interactive physics courses do increase retention rates(Wilcox, B R. et al, 2020). Some of the interactive activities involved in this study were online physics homework platforms Mastering Physics, and Flip It Physics, which are distributed by Pearson and Macmillan respectively. The use of these platforms were based on another study that involved an online autotutor which was found to raise retention rates compared to another course without the same interactive feature. The previous sentence shows the authors using previous studies to apply interaction features to physics courses.
The authors are trying to show physics educators that adopting interactive introductory physics will benefit the students and the student’s future courses that require introductory physics concepts. The authors use ethos by referencing previous studies in educational psychology to be the basis of conducting their study as the comparative effectiveness of rote memorization to interactive conceptual learning has already been analyzed. The authors use logos through their results to directly show the effectiveness of interactive physics courses and provide numerical evidence for it. The authors show some use pathos in their abstract by claiming that there is evidence that people don’t retain at all or most of what they learn which may be dramatic wording intended to urge educators to adopt interactive physics courses(Wilcox, B R. et al, 2020).
In the results section the authors have three subsections subtitled “A)Overall retention of mechanics knowledge on the FMCE, B)Impact of gap duration on conceptual knowledge retention, and C)Retention by item on the FMCE,” which correspond to overall results, time factor, and the percentage that switched or retained wrong or correct answers on the FMCE respectively. There are three graphs which are histograms, box plots, and a bar graph with fractions. The histogram shows the difference in the amount of questions on the FMCE answered correctly from the post instruction of the Physics I course and the post instruction of the Physics II course, which the author states shows an average of one more correct answer from Physics I to II. The box plot shows the length of gap between FMCEs and the score change which shows fifty percent of students regardless of the gap shifting scores 10 up or down. The bar graph with fractions show the percentage of answers that stay the same on the questions of both FCME either correct or incorrect or the answers changing from correct to incorrect or vice versa, the graph showed that the easiest questions were answered correctly around 92 percent of the time which indicates if students were serious when answering questions. The data was collected from the University of Colorado at Boulder from two semesters of introductory physics courses as well as previous semesters. There were about 1000 matched results meaning there were a 1000 students who had results from the two semesters to compare, there were also about 400 unmatched students who may have taken Physics I courses at other colleges or schools. The results overall show higher retention rates compared to previous semesters and unmatched students who haven’t taken the introductory Physics I course.
In the discussion section the authors discusses some of the limitations of the data in this study, because some of the FMCE scores were unmatched where some students took Phys II, but did not take Phys I at the University of Colorado Boulder as the student could have taken it in high school or transfered from another college which accounted for nearly one sixth of the data points. The FMCE scores were taken at the University of Colorado Boulder which has higher scores for physics compared to national scores so there could be confounding factors or other reasons for the results showing good retention of physics concepts. Thus if the study was replicated at other universities the results may not show as much success as at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
This assignment has taught me about the IMRAD format and recognizing what goes into the sections of IMRAD. One thing that surprised me about the format was that there were three moves that establishes the research, explains the need for the research, and what the research accomplishes.I also practiced analytical skills such as taking notes on the paper and on a loose leaf to note the three moves. The sample essay although not a resource always provided was really helpful and I modeled my analysis after the sample with content from the paper I was analyzing and I used labeling for each paragraph when I was typing the draft to make it clear what each paragraph was about. With the current circumstances I had more available to work on this analysis although there were still more opportunities to get distracted as well. Although I did practice collaboration with peers, my peer and I forgot to trade back the peer review paper so our comments were not taken into consideration. I also practiced searching the CUNY database which was where I found Arxiv.org.
References Analysis of Retention of Conceptual Learning After an Interactive Introductory Physics Course
Arxiv.org. “About.” About Arxiv, https://arxiv.org/about
Swales J. The Introduction Section. Helsinki University of Technology, 2005, http://www.cs.tut.fi/kurssit/SGN-16006/academic_writing/cars_model_handout.pdf
Wilcox, B. R., Pollock, S. J., & Bolton, D. R. (2020). Retention of conceptual learning after an interactive introductory physics course. Arxiv.org. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.07869.pdf
