Lillian C. McDermott
34
History
3/15/10
a matter of eradicating a “misconception,” a term that tends to trivialize the problem
because it is often interpreted as implying that all that is needed is to replace an incorrect
idea with a correct one.
Concepts in physics are interrelated and bound together by chains
of reasoning.
Difficulties with related concepts and with the reasoning that connects and
distinguishes one from another are inextricably linked and must be addressed together.
Since once is seldom enough to overcome a serious difficulty, students are presented with
several situations in which they can
apply, reflect, and generalize
.
E.
Development and Publication of
Tutorials in Introductory Physics
The main responsibility for development of the early tutorials was assumed by
Peter Shaffer, Karen Wosilait, Greg Francis, and Mark Somers.
Greg and Mark were
post-docs; Peter and Karen were still graduate students. Peter worked on all of the early
tutorials.
Karen was the leader in geometrical and physical optics.
Rand Harrington, then
still a graduate student, also made substantive contribution, especially in electrostatics.
Tutorials were instituted in one section of the calculus-based physics sequence in
the 1991 Winter Quarter.
The Chair assigned a supportive professor (Steve Sharpe) as the
lecturer.
Other sections were gradually added. By placing all TAs in a common pool,
rather than allocating them to individual instructors, we were able to assign two TAs to
each tutorial of about 22 students.
Initially, we had not planned to involve Honors
students but the course instructor requested that they be included.
We have since found
that (like TAs) they often gain more than other students from the tutorials.
Peter extended the research on electric circuits in the calculus-based course.
His
Ph.D. dissertation (1993) and our two papers in
AJP
describe this work and its application
in the tutorials and in
PbI
.
71
Priscilla Laws considers these papers a paradigm for using
research to guide instruction.
She drew on them to modify
Workshop Physics
and
reported significant gains in test scores.
72,73
Peter’s dissertation also included the initial
71
See Ref. 67.
72
See Ref. 54.
The papers also influenced the development of
Real-Time Physics
and
ILDs.
See Ref. 37.
73
P.W. Laws, private communication.
After standard instruction, < 50% of the students at Dickinson
College and U. of Oregon gave a correct ranking on the “four-bulbs” problem.
[See the first paper
in Shaffer and McDermott, Ref. 67, Fig. 5.]
The original version of
Workshop Physics
raised post-
test scores to ~ 60%.
After modifications based on our research, scores were > 90%.
Lillian C. McDermott
35
History
3/15/10
phase of our research on student understanding of two-dimensional kinematics, a long-
term study of more than 20,000 students at eight universities.
74,75
Peter and the Ph.D. students who followed him, as well as my five earlier students,
contributed to the research that underlies all of our instructional materials. Development,
modification, and assessment of the tutorials have involved everyone who has been in the
group since 1991. Students led the development of curriculum based on their own
research and collaborated on other topics.
Sometimes a research project produced a
section of a
PbI
module or a series of tutorials, such as the sequence on physical optics.
76
The main topics of students who earned Ph.D.s between 1995 and 2008 were:
Mechanics
Pamela Kraus (1997), Tara O’Brien Pride (1997),
Luanna Gomez Ortiz (2001), Andrew Boudreaux (2002),
Hunter Close (2005), Beth Lindsey (2008)
Electricity & Magnetism
Rand Harrington (1995), Pamela Kraus (1997), Steve Kanim (1999)
Waves & Optics
Karen Wosilait (1996), Brad Ambrose (1999), Mila Kryjevskaia (2008)
Hydrostatics & Thermal Physics
Michael Loverude (1999), Chris Kautz (1999), Matt Cochran (2005)
Modern Physics
Brad Ambrose (1999)
Special Relativity
Rachel Scherr (2001)
Quantum Mechanics
Andrew Crouse (2007)
In 1997 at the urging of Eric Mazur, Alison Reeves (then Physics Editor at
Prentice Hall) flew to Seattle with the Editor-in-Chief to observe the tutorials.
They were
able to convince Peter and me that the curriculum was in good enough shape to warrant
publication of the
Preliminary Edition
in 1998.
The
First Edition
was published in 2002
and a
Preliminary Second Edition
in 2009. We produced an
Instructor’s Guide
in 2003.
I felt overwhelmed by the legal contracts that I was asked to sign.
Both Wiley
(
PbI
) and Prentice Hall required that we pay royalty fees to one or the other for any
overlap between the tutorials and
PbI
.
Bruce (my son), by then an attorney, suggested that
74
P.S. Shaffer and L.C. McDermott, “A research-based approach to improving student understanding of
the vector nature of kinematical concepts,”
Am. J. Phys.
73
(10), 921 (2005).
75
Fred Reif had used this context to examine (and to try to improve) student ability to solve physics
problems.
See F. Reif and S. Allen, “Cognition for interpreting scientific concepts: A study of
acceleration,”
Cogn. Instruct.
9
(1),1 (1992).
See also Ref. 43.
76
B.S. Ambrose, P.S. Shaffer, R.N. Steinberg, and L.C. McDermott, “An investigation of student
understanding of single-slit-diffraction and double-slit interference,”
Am. J. Phys.
67
(2), 146 (1999); K.
Wosilait, P.R.L. Heron, P.S. Shaffer, and L.C. McDermott, “Addressing student difficulties in applying
a wave model to the interference and diffraction of light,”
Phys. Educ. Res., ibid. Suppl.
67
(7), S5
(1999).
