Nonlinear Psychometric Thresholds for Physics and Mathematics

[sylvan8798]

<p>

@starbright

Sylvan, your background sounds very similar to mine. But you ended up teaching physics, right? How did you get your background to where you ended up? Maybe there in lies important ideas that need to be adapted.

That’s all rather convoluted and tied in some ways to facing down that challenge (climbing Mount Everest, I call it). </p>

<p>The primary thing I see as far as students who are not doing well in college level calculus and physics is poor algebra skills. Mistakes in basic algebraic manipulation, cancelitis {eg. x/(x+2)=>1/2}, and inability to set up word problems. (Of course, this is likely reflected in their lower SAT scores.)</p>

<p>As for whether it is the fault of the Oregon professors, it is not the job of the calculus or physics professor to teach algebra. It is assumed that students have that skill coming in. Better screening and remediation would help, although students have ways of slipping past the screening and then still doing poorly in classes, so I don’t know how to go about improving on that.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@calmom

I don’t know what the standards are at the Univ. or Oregon – but at the university I attended (California), introductory STEM courses were taught in a large lecture format, supplemented by discussion groups and labs led by TA’s. At the time (early 70’s), the TA’s seemed to be generally fluent in Chinese, but not English. (*This might have improved since then, I don’t know).</p>

<p>Introductory courses in other areas tended to have much smaller classes, from seminars of 15 or less-- to a maximum lecture size of about 150 students.

</p>

<p>What I remember was that both STEM and non-STEM introductory courses tended to have large lectures supplemented by discussions (and labs, if applicable) with TAs (who generally were fluent in English). The biggest of all courses was the introductory economics course. The exceptions were English composition courses, which were small classes (but led by TAs, rather than faculty as most other courses were).</p>

<p>

@calmom

If the goal is to increase the number of students who are successful in pursuing studies in the discipline, then revamping of the curriculum makes sense, especially for a public university, which at least in theory should be able to work cooperatively with the entire state-wide educational system.

</p>

<p>Fixing the (large) problem of inadequate math preparation needs to be done at the K-12 level. Universities (or even community colleges) should not have to have large numbers of remedial math sections to reteach what many students did not learn in poor quality K-12 math courses. Indeed, even if the universities and community colleges did have the resources to offer that many remedial math sections, they still would not be able to “save” those who lost interest in math after poor quality K-12 math courses and avoid having anything to do with math.</p>

[performersmom]

<p>“students who are not doing well in college level calculus and physics is poor algebra skills. Mistakes in basic algebraic manipulation, cancelitis {eg. x/(x+2)=>1/2}, and inability to set up word problems. (Of course, this is likely reflected in their lower SAT scores.)”</p>

<p>THIS!!!
Algebra is the language of numbers using numerical equations to ask questions to solve for answers. Facility with algebra is crucial in life, in all math, and much science, and in most applied science and math. The ability to translate a word-based problem into an algebraic type of equation with numbers and variables is absolutely fundamental.
I so agree with you that these skills are not taught well anymore…
I was so disappointed in my Ds’ experiences with Math!
It is a form of literacy that is not achieved my many many students by the end of HS. It should be started much younger with linear equations and also the logic of geometric proofs. And HW should involve solving many more problems of a certain type with slight differences so that the patterns are seen, and it becomes fluent, like a language. Kids should also know learn to write word problems based on algebraic equations.
Serious miss these days.</p>

[sylvan8798]

<p>

@ucbalumnus

even if the universities and community colleges did have the resources to offer that many remedial math sections, they still would not be able to “save” those who lost interest in math after poor quality K-12 math courses and avoid having anything to do with math.

This is very true. Having taught remedial math courses many times (now sworn off from that one), I have found that for many students who believe that they are not good at math it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I myself must rather have been an exception ;). </p>

<p>That said, I personally believe that any student (well pretty much) who can manage to get themselves into college can manage to get through basic algebra, and a basic non-theory calculus course. Harder to convince them of that.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>The University of Oregon does have math remediation. They have three levels of math remediation, in fact. Students with SATM of 460 or below go to Elementary Algebra; SATM 470-540 go to Intermediate Algebra; 550 or above go to College Algebra. Students with a 550+ SATM are permitted to take a placement test, to place into calculus.</p>

<p>But as Sylvan says, by the time the student gets to calculus or physics, they need to have already been remediated.</p>

[coase]

<p>I am late to this discussion but I have to point out a glaring inaccuracy on the first page. calmom stated:

Physic and “pure” mathematics were the ONLY areas where there seemed to be a consistent correlation between SAT scores and achievement. This suggests to me that colleges would do well to dispense with the SAT entirely except for math & physics majors – or certainly to reduce reliance on the SAT for other majors.

</p>

<p>In fact, what the authors actualy stated was the following:

Interestingly, no similar threshold exists in other majors, such as Sociology, History, English or Biology, whether on SAT combined, SAT-R or SAT-M.

That is, they only say there is “no similar threshold.” Indeed, they go on to say this:

Despite the somewhat higher correlations, we discovered impressive cases of high achievement by students with relatively low SAT scores: in almost all majors (e.g., English, History, Sociology, Biology, etc.) students with combined (math + reading) scores well below 1000 (i.e., below the average among all SAT-takers) achieved in-major, upper division GPAs (henceforth, upper GPAs) in excess of 3.5 and even 4.0

So, yes, some low-SAT students do well in other fields, but there are actually “somewhat higher correlations” in those other fields. </p>

<p>The authors also refer to their earlier paper [Data</a> Mining the University: College GPA Predictions from SAT Scores by Stephen Hsu, James Schombert :: SSRN](<a href=“http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1589792]Data”>http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1589792). In it, they directly address the predictive power of SAT scores:

In addition to our primary result, we find that the best predictor of GPA is a roughly equally weighted sum of SAT and high school GPA, measured in standard deviation units.

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There goes the argument for dispensing with the SAT entirely. </p>

<p>Finally, it is humorous to see the vehemence with which people argue that high school GPA is the best predictor of college GPA. (Next you will tell us that SAT math scores are the best predictors of GRE math scores. That is not much of a revelation.) It is a little like saying that today’s high temperature is the best single predictor of tomorrow’s high tremperature. While true, using that single instrument exclusively causes you to miss the events we care most about–the big changes in temperature.</p>

[sewhappy]

<p>It is true that science classes can be just as “squishy” as humanities. Son took pemed physics at our state U and he felt like a genius – 100s on every quiz and final. At his selective undergrad every premed class was a lesson in academic humility.</p>

<p>I think it’s interesting to look at my two kids in regards to the SAT math section. Older one took the SAT in 7th grade in one of those talent search things and scored an 800 in math. Daughter had to prep on the math – worked her way up from high 600s to low 700s with much effort. So the conclusion might be that my son is good in math and my daughter not so good. Well, in terms of coursework, math has always been her “easy” class - breezed through BC Calc and as a senior right now thinks her AP Physics is her fun class. Son had to really work hard in math classes, considers himself not very stellar at college level math, concluded freshman year of college that he was no “quant”.</p>

<p>So I think he has some weird math reasoning talent in him that shows up on the SAT and did so from an early age. My other kid really likes math, gets intrigued by what it can be used for. She will be the one, I think, who uses math extensively in her career.</p>

<p>I do think that a future math/physics should think carefully about that direction if they are scoring < 600 in math, though.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>Speaking of better physics instruction:</p>

<p>[Physicists</a> Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool : NPR](<a href=“Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool : NPR”>Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool : NPR)</p>

[calmom]

<p>Thanks for that link. The part that stood out for me was this quote:

“The classes only seem to be really working for about 10 percent of the students,” Arizona State’s Hestenes says. “And I maintain, I think all the evidence indicates, that these 10 percent are the students that would learn it even without the instructor. They essentially learn it on their own.”

</p>

<p>That is what I was getting at with my comment about the alternative viewpoint – that the numbers could be seen to reflect a failure in teaching. I’m not saying the profs should be offering remedial classes – I’m saying that in a university environment, the goal of a good teacher should be to reach beyond the 10% who would be able to learn it all on their own anyway. </p>

<p>I’m glad to see that there is at least a small group of physics professors who are thinking along those lines.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>The physics professors can do a better job teaching physics, but they aren’t going to succeed teaching physics to students who don’t know algebra or are weak in trig.</p>

[pathways]

<p>^^ My D is taking AP Physics and AP Calc right now. She’s acing both because can see the relevance of one to the other. I agree that lectures don’t lead to understanding forfor highly conceptual subjects. I see my children learning while they work on problem sets…flip back a few pages in the text, go “ahhh” and redo a problem. As part of her online Physics course she watches lectures online from MIT…she admits that those are not very engaging.</p>

<p>BTW: She’s not a high SAT kid (mid-600s, but mid-700s on SAT IIs). Her GPA/Rank is much better (top 3%)…and I think it is mostly a matter of motivation (she loves math & science and HATES taking the SATs, worse than going to the dentist, writing endless essays or raking leaves). Some of her peers enjoy the challenge of the SAT and thus have prepared for it and retook it a few times.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>

I see my children learning while they work on problem sets…flip back a few pages in the text, go “ahhh” and redo a problem.

</p>

<p>Exactly. Math is not a spectator sport; you have do it to learn it. Also, plugging numbers into formulas (the way students are instructed to do in some Statistics courses) does not lead to learning.</p>