CLASS

(Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey)

The CLASS (Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey) is part of the PhET (Physics Education Technology) Project and the PER@C (Physics Education Research Group at Colorado).

Over the last decade, researchers in science education have identified a variety of student beliefs that shape and are shaped by student classroom experience.^1,4,5,7  Based on studies of students' beliefs, researchers have developed instruments designed to probe these beliefs.⁸

Building on this prior work, here at Colorado, we have developed and validated another instrument, the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey, CLASS.The CLASS draws from the existing surveys (MPEX⁶, VASS³, EBAPS²) and adds and refines material to account for other student ABs observed to be important in educational practice.⁷ The CLASS was written to make the questions as clear and concise as possible and is readily adapted to use in a wide variety of science courses.Students are asked to respond on a Likert-like (5-point agree to disagree) scale to questions such as: "Learning physics changes my ideas about how the world works".It has been used in both pencil and paper and online formats.  

Version 3 created for use during the Fall semester of 2004 can be found in both HTML and PDF formats by clicking below.

WebAssign ID number 1222349 "Beliefs about Physics Survey" courtesy of Danny Caballero, Georgia Institute of Technology Physics Education Research Group.

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We've also been collaborating with The Excellence Center of Science and Mathematics Education at King Saud University. 
Learn more about the CLASS-Phys and access translations in many languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, German, Japanese, Spanish, and Turkish from the CLASS-Phys page on PhysPort.

Instrument Design, Validation, and Application Papers: 

A new instrument for measuring student beliefs about physics and learning physics: the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey , published in PRST Jan. 2006.
Modifying and Validating the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Use in Chemistry , J. Barbera, K. K. Perkins, W. K. Adams, and C. E. Wieman, Journal of Chemical Education, 85, pp 1435-1439 (2008).
The Design and Validation of the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey, published in PERC Proceedings 2004

Analysis Papers: 

Who Becomes a Physics Major? A Long-term Longitudinal Study Examining the Roles of Pre-college Beliefs about Physics and Learning Physics, Interest, and Academic Achievement, published in PERC Proceedings 2010
Correlating Student Beliefs With Student Learning Using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey, published in PERC Proceedings 2004
Towards characterizing the relationship between students' self-reported interest in and their surveyed beliefs about physics, published in PERC Proceedings 2005
Chemistry vs. Physics: A Comparison of How Biology Majors View Each Discipline, published in PERC Proceedings 2006
Measuring Students' Beliefs about Physics in Saudi Arabia published in PERC Proceedings 2009 (See Poster here)

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** Several of the questions are drawn directly from the MPEX⁶

1. Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L., and Cocking, R.R. (2002). How People Learn Washington D.C.: National Academy Press.
2. Elby, A., Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Physical Science  
3. Halloun, I. A. "Views About Science and Physics Achievement: The VASS 
4. Story." In The Changing Role of Physics Departments in Modern 
5. Universities: Proceedings of the ICUPE, E.F. 
6. Hammer, D. (2000) Student resources for learning introductory physics, American Journal of  Physics, 68, S52-S59.
7. Redish, E.F.,(2003). Teaching Physics with Physics Suite, John Wiley & Sons.
8. Redish, E., Saul, J.M. and Steinberg, R.N. (1998). Student Expectations in Introductory Physics American Journal of Physics, 66, 212-224.  
9. Seymour, E. and Hewitt, N.,(1997). Talking about Leaving, Westview Press.
10. Seymour, E. and Zeilik, M., Field-tested Learning Assessment Guide (FLAG),