Introduction
Here are a number of statements that may or may not describe your beliefs
about learning physics. You are asked to rate each statement by selecting
a number between 1 and 5 where the numbers mean the following:
- Strongly Disagree
- Disagree
- Neutral
- Agree
- Strongly Agree
Choose one of the above five choices that best expresses your
feeling about
the statement. If you don't understand a statement, leave it blank. If you
have no strong opinion, choose 3.
We are asking that you express your own beliefs. Your answers will not affect
your grade. Your instructor
will never see your individual answers, only whether you participated and
the class results as a whole. This information will be very helpful to
us in an effort to design more effective physics courses.
Survey (8-10 minutes)
- A significant problem in learning physics is being able to memorize all
the information I need to know.
- When I am solving a physics problem, I try to decide what would be a reasonable value for the answer.
- I think about the physics I experience in everyday life.
- It is useful for me to do lots and lots of problems when learning physics.
- After I study a topic in physics and feel that I understand it, I have difficulty solving problems on the same topic.
- Knowledge in physics consists of many disconnected topics.
- As physicists learn more, most physics ideas we use today are
likely to be proven wrong.
- When I solve a physics problem, I locate an equation that uses the variables given in the problem and plug in the values.
- I find that reading the text in detail is a good way for me to learn physics.
- There is usually only one correct approach to solving a physics problem.
- I am not satisfied until I understand why something works the way it does.
- I cannot learn physics if the teacher does not explain things well in class.
- I do not expect physics equations to help my understanding of the ideas; they are just for doing calculations.
- I study physics to learn knowledge that will be useful in my life outside of school.
- If I get stuck on a physics problem on my first try, I usually try to figure
out a different way that works.
- Nearly everyone is capable of understanding physics if they work at it.
- Understanding physics basically means being able to recall something you've read or been shown.
- There could be two different correct values for the answer to a physics problem
if I use two different approaches.
- To understand physics I discuss it with friends and other students.
- I do not spend more than five minutes stuck on a physics problem before giving up or seeking help from someone else.
- If I don't remember a particular equation needed to solve a problem on an exam, there's nothing much I can do (legally!) to come up with it.
- If I want to apply a method used for solving one physics problem to another problem, the problems must involve very similar situations.
- In doing a physics problem, if my calculation gives a result very different from what I'd expect, I'd trust the calculation rather than going back through the problem.
- In physics, it is important for me to make sense out of formulas before I can use them correctly.
- I enjoy solving physics problems.
- In physics, mathematical formulas express meaningful relationships among measurable quantities.
- It is important for the government to approve new scientific ideas before they can be widely accepted.
- Learning physics changes my ideas about how the world works.
- To learn physics, I only need to memorize solutions to sample problems.
- Reasoning skills used to understand physics can be helpful to me in my everyday life.
- We use this statement to discard the survey of people who are not reading
the questions. Please select agree (not strongly agree) for this question.
- Spending a lot of time understanding where formulas come from is a waste of time.
- I find carefully analyzing only a few problems in detail is a good way for me to learn physics.
- I can usually figure out a way to solve physics problems.
- The subject of physics has little relation to what I experience in the real world.
- There are times I solve a physics problem more than one way to help my understanding.
- To understand physics, I sometimes think about my personal experiences and relate them to the topic being analyzed.
- It is possible to explain physics ideas without mathematical formulas.
- When I solve a physics problem, I explicitly think about which physics ideas apply to the problem.
- If I get stuck on a physics problem, there is no chance I'll figure it out on my own.
- It is possible for physicists to carefully perform the same experiment and get two very different results that are both correct.
- When studying physics, I relate the important information to what I already know rather than just memorizing it the way it is presented.
Additional Questions (2-4 minutes)
- Currently, what is your level of interest in teaching physics?
Why?
- What is your gender?
We thank you for taking the time to fill out this survey. Your participation
is really helpful because knowing more about students' beliefs about physics
helps improve our teaching practices.
I ...
agree ...
do not agree ... to
permit the
investigators to obtain
and use my
course grades, attendance records, and GPA for this
research to improve this and other courses in science. This information
will be seen only by the researchers. Identifying information (name, ID)
will only be used to combine these survey answers and the coursework data
and will be deleted prior to any subsequent analysis.
By pressing submit you are agreeing to participate in
this research project as outlined in the Informed Consent Document above.
If you do not want to participate, simply do not answer the questions and submit
only your name and ID.
.....
