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

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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.