Do connections persist? A pilot study investigating the lasting impact of a physics course designed to facilitate connections with biology.

连接是否持续存在？

• 批准号: 1710875
• 负责人: Catherine Crouch
• 金额: $ 22.07万
• 依托单位: Swarthmore College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-08-15 至 2021-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1710875&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Do; connections; persist; pilot; study

This project will study the effectiveness of new approaches for teaching physics to future life scientists and medical professionals, in order to support the use and improvement of these new curricula nationwide. These new, active learning-based physics courses have been developed in response to calls by life science and medical professional associations for introductory physics courses that help students apply the physical sciences to the life sciences. With several such courses having been developed recently, and with roughly 300,000 undergraduates graduating each year with majors in the life sciences and health professions nationwide, it is important to find out whether and how these physics courses support students in their chosen fields.The goal of this research project is to address two questions: (1) Do introductory physics for life sciences (IPLS) students demonstrate a greater ability to leverage physics competencies in their later biology coursework, compared to their peers who have taken no physics or traditional introductory physics? If so, in what ways? (2) Do IPLS students view physics as more relevant and connected to their biology and chemistry coursework, compared with their peers? If so, in what ways? This longitudinal study will analyze interviews, surveys of students, and students' written work on tasks in their intermediate and advanced biology courses. From these data, this project will develop an understanding of how biology students draw upon their physics knowledge and skills, and whether and how IPLS courses support them differently than traditional physics courses do. As such a longitudinal study has not previously been done, this project is important because it lays the groundwork for future large-scale assessment. In addition, the project will develop intermediate and advanced biology tasks with connections to physics, which will be disseminated for both instructional use and for further research.

该项目将研究向未来生命科学家和医学专业人员教授物理的新方法的有效性，以支持全国范围内这些新课程的使用和改进。这些新的、基于主动学习的物理课程是为了响应生命科学和医学专业协会对入门物理课程的号召而开发的，这些课程帮助学生将物理科学应用到生命科学中。最近开发了几门此类课程，并且全国范围内每年有大约 300,000 名生命科学和健康专业专业的本科生毕业，因此了解这些物理课程是否以及如何支持学生选择的领域非常重要。该研究项目的目标是解决两个问题：(1) 生命科学入门物理 (IPLS) 学生是否能够在以后的生物学中表现出更强的利用物理能力的能力 与没有学过物理或传统入门物理的同龄人相比，他们的课程作业如何？如果是的话，通过什么方式？ (2) 与同龄人相比，IPLS 学生是否认为物理学与他们的生物和化学课程更相关、更相关？如果是的话，通过什么方式？这项纵向研究将分析对学生的访谈、调查以及学生针对中级和高级生物学课程任务的书面作业。根据这些数据，该项目将了解生物学学生如何利用他们的物理知识和技能，以及 IPLS 课程是否以及如何以不同于传统物理课程的方式支持他们。由于以前从未进行过这样的纵向研究，因此该项目很重要，因为它为未来的大规模评估奠定了基础。此外，该项目还将开发与物理学相关的中级和高级生物学任务，这些任务将被传播用于教学用途和进一步研究。