Dear fellow Physics educators,
As part of a final year BSc project, I have two students who have set-up a survey exploring if foundation year and year 1 students (England/Wales*) are mathematical or conceptual in their approach to learning physics and if this is shaped by their experiences and attitudes to teamwork.
Their survey is inspired from a) analysis of open-source dataset of 70, 000 responses to the CLASS survey [1], b) increasing IOP degree requirements on teamwork and c) historical A-level setup whereby students can take A-level physics without A-level maths.
The research has been approved through the School of University of Sussex ethical review process. The ethical review application number of the study is Project ID 493.
Overall, we hope to disseminate results at future conferences – hence all university departments that distribute the survey will of course be credited and invited to contribute.
If you wish to be involved, please do contact me and I can send on relevant pdf files. I have attached to this message photos of invitation letter for reference.
If you do not have direct contact with Y0/Y1 students, please feel free to forward onto colleagues in your department who do.
Best wishes
Maire
*Note “Foundation year” and “year 1” corresponds to year 1 and year 2 respectively in Scottish universities.
[1] Data sharing model for physics education research using the 70 000 response Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics dataset | Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.
