Weber State University   

Physics

RESULTS OF ASSESSMENT

2000-2001 (submitted 05/15/01)

During the past year, the Department of Physics has made strides towards expanding and solidifying an assessment program. Multiple efforts have been put forward in order to assess how well our program serves our general student population and our majors while they are enrolled in our courses, in addition to how well our program promotes the future successes of graduates. As we expand our assessment efforts, we consider much of what we are doing as experimental, but we are confident that we are starting to get a better understanding of what assessment processes aid both our department and our students.

Our program assessment has been carried out on two different levels. One analysis has been focused on our majors (physics, applied physics, physics teaching, and physical science composite teaching) and minors (physics and physics teaching) and the graduates from these programs. We are assessing the degree to which these students’ needs are met by our program, and how our program enables them once they have graduated.

On another level, we focus more closely on the learning that takes place in individual courses. This assessment considers not only the students who graduate with a degree from our department, but also on students who are enrolled in physics coursework to supplement a major outside of our department and/or to fulfill general education coursework. These types of analyses have begun to take place in selected courses, focusing on specific learning objectives. It is our hope that the assessment which takes place on this level will be informative to all instructors in the department and to all courses in which we are involved.

This report is organized according to these two different levels of assessment. Under each level are items which describe specific assessment efforts and their results.

1. The following assessments have been or are currently being implemented in order to determine the effectiveness of our program in providing the education and training necessary for our majors’ and minors’ post-graduation success in employment, graduate school, and other endeavors.

   1. Graduate exit survey

      1. Our exit survey (of graduates in a physics, applied physics, physics teaching, or physical science composite teaching major) has been expanded and is included as a required part of graduation sign-off. (These exit-surveys are filled out anonymously and filed with the department secretary to ensure student anonymity.) Surveys ask students a variety of qualitatively answered questions which aim to highlight student impressions of the strengths and weaknesses of the departments ability and dedication towards helping students succeed both during and after their college careers.

      2. The results of this instrument are not conclusive, but encouraging. Since we graduate a relatively small number of individuals each year, it would not be fair to state that the exit surveys currently provide a reliable reading. We will continue to accumulate these data in subsequent years. In the meantime, it should be noted that exit surveys are overwhelmingly positive, all stating that the accessibility of and interaction with faculty members was plentiful and beneficial. Graduates also consistently listed numerous course and research experiences which they found favorable. The laboratory and study facilities were also noted in most responses. Negative comments were less frequent and not consistent between individuals. Still, this assessment effort remains in progress as we continue to collect more data.

   2. Graduate Record Exam

      1. We have continued to collect data on physics majors’ performance on the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) and are collecting data on both physics GPA and overall GPA to look for correlations between local performance and performance on the nationally standardized GRE.

      2. We currently have data on approximately 50% of those students who have taken the GRE during the past decade and we are continuing to collect more data. We hesitate to make too many conclusions based on this data, due to the fact that students who take the GRE have the option to not report their scores to our department. In the future, we will make an effort to encourage students to report scores to the department by assuring them that scores will not be associated with names when the scores are reported.

   3. Curriculum analysis

      1. A thorough analysis of our physics curriculum was completed as part of the semester conversion process. We intend to monitor our curriculum closely for the next few years to see if slight corrections are needed.

      2. The department has a curriculum committee which is responsible for such monitoring, and it has recommended small revisions to the curriculum and individual courses over the past year. In addition, this committee has developed and maintains a set of expanded course descriptions and topics on file in the department. A thorough review of the curriculum is planned every five years; the next iteration of this is planned for the 2003-2004 academic year.

   4. Grade and artifact analysis

      1. We will analyze student grades and artifacts of student performance (written assignments, lab reports, senior presentation, etc.) to help identify weaknesses in the curriculum. This level of analysis is aimed specifically at courses and activities which are intended for our majors.

      2. At this point, insufficient time has elapsed to collect enough data to be meaningful, thus data collection is still in progress.

2. This second level of assessment is aimed at specific learning objectives in specific classes. As a department with a commitment to and research interest in physics education, the following list of undertakings is meant to be useful in specific contexts and courses, as well as to other courses and instructors, both at this institution and beyond.

   1. The Force Concept Inventory

      1. In a General Physics I course in the fall of 2000, the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) was integrated into regular coursework. This tool is used to measure conceptual understanding of Newtonian mechanics. It was administered both at the beginning and the end of the semester in order to gauge changes in students’ conceptions.

      2. While some of the FCI analysis remains to be done, it is clear that the group of students taking this course improved their conceptions of Newtonian mechanics during the time they were enrolled in this course. In addition, these improvements are comparable to other physics programs across the nation. What is probably most notable is the fact that the FCI instrument is now accessible to all instructors for use in many physics classes. The use of the FCI will be more frequently used in the future, using Weber State’s internet based test engine, ChiTester .

   2. Nature of science understandings

      1. A group of students participated in a qualitative research study in the fall of 1999 which aimed to show how their conceptions of the nature of science (NOS) developed and changed as a result of discussion and laboratory sessions in a general education physics course. This in-depth study utilized interview sessions, various interview probes, and a comparative analysis method to ascertain and understand what learning took place and how.

      2. This study revealed that, while students became more motivated to do science and see its application, they tended to still have relatively naive impressions as to what science is and how it works. Multiple causes are responsible for this. The results of this study have been presented to the department. This study has effected some changes in how specific topics of this course are presented.

3. Future assessment efforts
   Our future efforts will continue in the directions outlined above and expand upon these as time allows. This will consist of continual analysis of the curriculum (see item I.C.2) as well as an ongoing effort in educational research to evaluate specific learning objectives in specific courses. (Towards this end, the department supports faculty whose research objectives are in physics and science education.) We are confident that our current direction will assist us in maintaining high standards in the teaching and learning which takes place in our department.

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