scholarly journals Effects of a Thermal Inversion Experiment on STEM Students Learning and Application of Damped Harmonic Motion

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 919
Author(s):  
Omar Israel González-Peña ◽  
Gustavo Morán-Soto ◽  
Rodolfo Rodríguez-Masegosa ◽  
Blas Manuel Rodríguez-Lara
Keyword(s):  
Epistemological Beliefs ◽  
Temperature Inversion ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Thermal Inversion ◽  
Harmonic Motion ◽  
Physics Courses ◽  
Stem Students ◽  
Physical Phenomena

There are diverse teaching methodologies to promote both collaborative and individual work in undergraduate physics courses. However, few educational studies seek to understand how students learn and apply new knowledge through open-ended activities that require mathematical modeling and experimentation focused on environmental problems. Here, we propose a novel home experiment to simulate the dynamics of a flue gas under temperature inversion and model it as damped harmonic motion. After designing and conducting the experiment, twenty six first year students enrolled in STEM majors answered six qualitative questions to inform us about their epistemological beliefs regarding their learning process. Their answers imply that this type of open-ended experiments may facilitate students’ understanding of physical phenomena and point to the significance of physics instructors as promoters of epistemological development. In general, students described this activity as a positive experience that helped them connect an environmental phenomenon with a fundamental physics concept.

scholarly journals The Relation between Gender, Reasons to Participate in STEM-Related Subjects, Programs and The University Supports On First-Year University Student’s Satisfaction: A Structural Equation Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-123
Author(s):  
Ikmanda Nugraha ◽  
Tatang Suratno ◽  
Asep Kadarohman ◽  
Ari Widodo ◽  
I Gusti Darmawan
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equity ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Teaching Quality ◽  
First Year ◽  
Stem Learning ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
University Support ◽  
Stem Students ◽  
Positive Direct ◽  
The University

First-year student's satisfaction has considered an important factor in the quality education offered by the university program. The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship among gender, a reason to participate in STEM-related subjects, program, and the university support on first-year student's satisfaction of STEM learning. The methods used in this study surveyed student's satisfaction using adapted interest and recruitment in the science questionnaire (IRIS Q) instrument. The questionnaire comprised question items covering school science experiences, sources of inspiration for the choice of education, expectations for future job, first-year experiences as a STEM student, and attitudes to gender equity in STEM. A total of 448 students, first-year students from STEM-related programs, have participated voluntarily in this study. The structural equating model assisted by computer program IBM SPSS Amos 20 was employed to analyze the hypothesized model. The results from the model showed that reason and university support have a positive direct effect on first-year students' satisfaction with STEM learning. From this study, it is suggested for the university to improve first-year student's satisfaction by helping STEM students to develop appropriate expectations of the program, facilitating teaching quality to meet STEM students' learning, and assisting students in developing positive attitudes toward their future carriers.

scholarly journals Closing the Gap: First Year Success in College Mathematics at an HBCU

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 92-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa A Harrington ◽  
Andrew Lloyd ◽  
Tomasz Smolinski ◽  
Mazen Shahin
Keyword(s):  
Academic Success ◽  
Developmental Mathematics ◽  
Retention Rate ◽  
First Year ◽  
Summer Bridge ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Mathematics Courses ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Bridge Program ◽  
On Line

At our Historically-Black University, about 89% of first-year students place into developmental mathematics, negatively impacting retention and degree completion. In 2012, an NSF-funded learning enrichment project began offering the introductory and developmental mathematics courses on-line over the summer to incoming science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors at no cost. Passing rates for the summer on-line classes were around 80%, and students in the on-line classes scored equivalently on the common departmental final exams as students taking the classes in the traditional format. For students who passed the on-line classes, their performance in the following classes (College Algebra and Trigonometry) exceeded that of students who progressed to those courses by taking the traditional series of in-person courses. Three years of data show that students who started college with an on-line mathematics course in a summer bridge program had a higher first year GPA, a better first year retention rate and earned significantly more credits in their first year than the overall population of STEM students. These results suggest that offering introductory mathematics courses on-line as part of a freshman bridge program is an effective, scalable intervention to increase the academic success of students who enter college under-prepared in mathematics. The positive results are particularly exciting since the students in our project were 87% minority.

scholarly journals Students’ Behavior and Perceptions Regarding Complementary Videos for Introductory Physics Courses in an Online Environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 523
Author(s):  
Antoni Perez-Navarro ◽  
Victor Garcia ◽  
Jordi Conesa
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Introductory Physics ◽  
First Year ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Digital Videos ◽  
Text Documents ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Physics Courses ◽  
Video Creation ◽  
Physics Course

Digital videos have an important and increasing presence in student learning. They play a key role especially in subjects with high mathematical content, such as physics. However, creating videos is a time-consuming activity for teachers, who are usually not experts in video creation. Therefore, it is important to know which kinds of videos are perceived as more useful by students and why. In this paper we analyze students’ perception of videos in an introductory physics course of engineering with over 200 first year students in a 100% online university, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). Students had 142 videos available of several types. We followed a qualitative methodology from a ground theory perspective and performed semi-structured interviews. Results show that students found videos as the most valued resource, although they considered that videos cannot substitute text documents. Students valued human elements and found them in videos where the hands of the professor appear. Finally, students consumed videos according to the course schedule, visualized the whole video the first time, and consumed it later according to further deliveries and exams. The main contributions of this paper were analyzing the perception of students from a qualitative perspective in an introductory course of physics in engineering, obtaining the main elements that make videos useful for students and showing that videos with hands are valued by students.

Understanding of mechanical waves among second-year physics majors

2011 ◽  
Vol 89 (11) ◽  
pp. 1155-1161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin M. Kennedy ◽  
John R. de Bruyn
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Test ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
University Of Maryland ◽  
Physics Courses ◽  
Mechanical Waves ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Level Of Instruction ◽  
Common Misconceptions

We investigate the understanding of mechanical waves in a class of second-year physics majors at a Canadian university. We administered a previously-developed diagnostic test (Wittmann. Ph.D. thesis, University of Maryland. Unpublished. 1998.) pre- and post-instruction to second-year students, and pre-instruction to a group of first-year students. We find that common misconceptions identified in previous studies involving students in first-year physics courses persist among our second-year students, although the fraction of students holding these misconceptions decreases with instruction. We also find that application of wave concepts becomes more consistent, and that the correlation between the students’ own perception of their understanding and their diagnostic test scores increases significantly as their level of instruction advances. We describe two tutorial exercises developed to address areas in which conceptual understanding is weak.

A Real PLUSS: An Intrusive Advising Program for Underprepared STEM Students

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Rodgers ◽  
Shelly Blunt ◽  
Linda Trible
Keyword(s):  
Retention Rates ◽  
Underprepared Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Intrusive Advising ◽  
Course Work ◽  
Stem Students ◽  
Additional Support ◽  
The University ◽  
Undergraduate Success

Increasing numbers of underprepared students are admitted to colleges and universities with aspirations of earning a degree in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) discipline. Transitioning to college is difficult for all students, but can be especially challenging for the underprepared STEM student. Many of these students are capable of completing STEM degrees if given additional support during their first-year advising sessions as well as opportunities to strengthen their foundational knowledge prior to enrolling in major-level course work. Pathways Leading to Undergraduate Success in the Sciences (PLUSS) is an intrusive advising program the University of Southern Indiana designed to provide at-risk undergraduate STEM majors with increased academic support. The PLUSS program is associated with increased retention rates.

Impact of Short-Duration Research Experiences on STEM Self-Efficacy among Early-Stage, Rural, First-Generation College Students

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 42-49
Author(s):  
Jandy Hanna ◽  
Hannah Carreon ◽  
Micheal Fultz ◽  
Erica Harvey ◽  
Caitlin Howley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
First Generation ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
First Generation College Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Research Experiences ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Career Plans ◽  
Before And After ◽  
First Generation College

In rural West Virginia, the First2 Network aims to improve STEM persistence by including students in creating solutions to STEM attrition. A research program for rising first-year students in STEM majors is discussed here. The authors assessed students’ STEM education and career plans, identity, efficacy, and sense of school of belonging before and after the program. Students’ STEM identity, efficacy, and school belonging improved after participation.

AN ANALYSIS ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY THROUGH STORYTELLING FOR GRADE X SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Khairani Nur Adha And Rahmad Husein
Keyword(s):  
Research Finding ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
First Grade ◽  
First Year ◽  
English Teacher ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
Oral Test ◽  
Fluency And Comprehension ◽  
Low Ability

The aim of this research was to find out the ability of the first year students in speaking by using storytelling at MAS. Al-Jam’iyatul Wasliyah. The design of this research was descriptive research. The population of this research was 20 students of XC class in the first grade at MAS. Al-Jam’iyatul Wasliyah. In selecting the sample the writer used random sampling technique. The total number of the sample was 12 students. The data was collected by using oral test. The researcher only measured the ability of students’ speaking in storytelling by considering five components of speaking: (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, fluency, and comprehension). And their speaking had been recorded by using phone recorder. From the result of analyzing the data, the researcher found that the students’ speaking ability by using storytelling was moderate. It proved by the fact that 4 students (33.33%) classified as high ability, 4 students (33.33%) classified as moderate ability, and 4 students (33.33%) classified as low ability. Based on the data, the students’ score were bigger in the high and moderate level than in the low ability level. Based on the research finding, the English teacher is suggested to consider the five components in scoring speaking ability (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, fluency, and comprehension). The students are suggested to do more practice in pronunciation and fluency, because they dominantly speak incorrect pronunciation and have pauses in the sentences. Students are also suggested to enrich their vocabulary by using storytelling.

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