Cognitive Studies in Physics (and Astronomy)

Do in-class questions help students’ learning?

Addie Dove

Dong Han

Outline

• Cognitive Study1. Background information

2. Why cognitive studies in physics?

3. What do cognitive studies focus on?

• Our Purpose• Our Method• Our Conclusions

Background information

• Research into the process of human cognition started in the 1950s

• Focuses on how people understand and learn

• Contradictory to behavior research, which focuses on the students’ errors in understanding during teaching

Why Cognitive Studies in Physics?

• Recently, more concentration on the content of physics, not on students

• Fail to make an impact on the way a majority of our students think about the world

• Some physicists have begun to perform experiments on how students are thinking about the world, but not in a framework

What do cognitive studies focus on?

1. Building Patterns:Principle 1: People tend to organize their experiences and observations into patterns or mental models

You cannot teach anybody anything. All you can do as a teacher is to make it easier for your students to learn.

2. Building on a mental model:Principle 2: It is reasonably easy to learn something that matches or extends an existing mental model.

3. Changing an existing mental model: Principle 3: It is very difficult to change an established mental model substantially.

4.The Individuality Principle: Principle 4: Since each individual constructs his or

her own mental ecology, different students have different mental models for physical phenomenon and different mental models for learning.

In other words:

Teacher’s important task --- Find their students’ problems, and help them by asking questions

Our Purpose

• Inspired by the theory of cognitive studies, we would like to investigate

1. how well the questions asked by instructors help students form correct concepts

2. what kind of questions are most helpful to students according to Bloom Taxonomy

Method• Class observation

– Notes on questions asked of students

• Assessment of questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy

• Anonymous student survey

• Observed 4 different classes– 3 intro classes, 1 for physics majors

Question 1

Q1 - Class 3

89%

11% 0%

a

b

c

Do you think the questions asked by the instructor are useful?

a) Yes, very helpfulb) A little bitc) No, not at all

Q1 - Class 1

46%

52%

2%

a

b

c

Q1 -Class 2

67%

32%

1%

a

b

c

Q1 - Class 4

70%

22%

8%

a

b

c

Q2 - Class 4

60%

27%

13%

a

b

c

Question 2Do you think the answers to some questions are contradictory

to your common sense or previous experiences?

a) Yesb) Noc) I don’t have previous experience with most of the subjects

Q2 -Class 3

85%

4%

11%

a

b

c

Q2 - Class 2

35%

37%

28%

a

b

c

Q2 - Class 1

36%

48%

16%

a

b

c

Question 3

Q3 - Class 1

72%

28%

0%

a

b

c

Do you think that learning the answers changed your former ideas totally, or do you think you’ll still hold onto your old ideas?

a) Yes, however, it is meaningful to form the right concept.

b) Yes, I just accept them conditionally.c) No, it doesn’t make any sense to me.

I have confidence mine is right.

Q3 - Class 4

65%

30%

5%

a

b

c

Q3 - Class 3

81%

19%0%

a

b

c

Q3 - Class 2

74%

23%

3%

a

b

c

Question 4

Q4 - Class 2

35%

37%

28%

a

b

c

Q4 - Class 1

38%

28%

34%

a

b

c

Do you have a better way to help yourself form the correct concept if you CANNOT easily accept the new ideas?

a) Yes, I have.b) No, I haven’t.c) I am trying to figure it out.

Q4 - Class 3

27%

35%

38%

a

b

c

Q4 - Class 4

30%

22%

48% a

b

c

Class 1Class 1

4636

72

38

52

48

28

28

2

16

34

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1 2 3 4

Question

c

b

a

7 questions: 1 “knowledge” 6 “comprehension”

N=61

Class 2Class 2

67

35

74

35

32

37

23

37

1

28

3

38

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1 2 3 4

Question

c

b

a

6 questions: 2 “knowledge”4 “comprehension”

N=100

Class 4Class 4

7060 65

30

2227

30

22

813

5

48

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1 2 3 4

Question

c

b

a

N=37

5 questions: 1 “knowledge” 3 “comprehension” 1 “application”

Class 3Class 3

88.9 85.277.8

25.9

11.1

18.5

33.3

0

11.10

37

3.7

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1 2 3 4

Question

c

b

a

17 questions: 5 “knowledge” 9 “comprehension” 3 “application”

N=27**upper level**

Our Conclusions

1. During an Astronomy class, especially for an introductory-level class, teachers’ questions are helpful to students

2. These questions are mainly “Comprehension” questions, according to Bloom’s Taxonomy

3. Different students have different backgrounds, and so will also use their own methods to figure it out.

Comments

• Class size makes a difference• Teacher makes a difference - types of

questions asked, how they’re asked• Comprehension questions were asked the

most often, but are they really the best?• Only a few survey questions were asked of

students, so limited information was gathered (not an in-depth study)

• Solutions?– Study several large, intro classes in more depth– Observe one teacher at different levels of classes

The End