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An analysis of 1,955 physics graduate students from 19 PhD programs shows that undergraduate grade point average predicts graduate grades and PhD completion more effectively than GRE scores. Students’ undergraduate GPA (UGPA) and GRE Physics (GRE-P) scores are small but statistically significant predictors of graduate course grades, while GRE quantitative and GRE verbal scores are not. We also find that males and females score equally well in their graduate coursework despite a statistically significant 18 percentile point gap in median GRE-P scores between genders. A coun- terfactual mediation analysis demonstrates that among admission metrics tested only UGPA is a significant predictor of overall PhD completion, and that UGPA predicts PhD completion indirectly through graduate grades. Thus UGPA measures traits linked to graduate course grades, which in turn predict graduate completion. Although GRE-P scores are not significantly associated with PhD completion, our results suggest that any predictive effect they may have are also linked indi- rectly through graduate GPA. Overall our results indicate that among commonly used quantitative admissions metrics, UGPA offers the most insight into two important measures of graduate school success, while posing fewer concerns for equitable admissions practices.

AAPT SM 21

Do admissions metrics predict PhD completion indirectly through graduate GPA?

admissions

graduate

diversity

The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. The program featured plenary speakers, sessions, workshops and many special activities.

For more information please visit the 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting page at: https://www.aapt.org/Conferences/SM2020/index.cfm.


AAPT SM 20

The 2020 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting brought together physics educators from around the globe to learn about the latest in physics theory, research methodology and education from leaders in their field. 

technical paper

Join AAPT and Physics Educators worldwide in developing and strengthening your professional connections by attending the 2021 AAPT Virtual Summer Meeting. AAPT meetings are a great way to reflect on your teaching, recommit to best practices and re-energize your career with new research, products, and techniques.

Listen to internationally known plenary speakers, attend sessions, workshops, and special activities. Attending the virtual summer meeting is an excellent opportunity to share your expertise and learn from and network with leaders in the field.

Please log in with your AAPT account or register for the event if you haven't already.

If you are registered please note that you need to be logged in with your AAPT email / credentials in order to get access.

The Rayleigh-Taylor instability involving accelerated fluid layers with differing densities is well known in fluid physics. A similar instability can arise within the silicate mantles of terrestrial planets because they are typically hot in their interiors and cold at their top boundaries. The strength of the instability is enhanced by the fact that the strength of silicate minerals is a strong function of shear stress and temperature. The instability is expressed by portions of the upper and lower boundary layers detaching to form plume-like diapirs that move through the mantle to the opposite boundary. This talk will present both illustrative numerical examples and observational evidence that it has occurred in the Earth’s past and is responsible for a major mass extinction. The Magellan mission to Venus in the early 1990’s documented that a catastrophic episode of mantle instability had also occurred within Venus in the relatively recent past.

Mass Extinction Caused by Gravitational Instability inside the Earth

During the Battle of Britain in 1940, the British sent a top secret mission under the leadership of Henry Tizard to the United States carrying what was later described by historian John Phinney Baxter III as “the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores.” The cargo was a suitcase full of scientific and technological secrets and one working cavity magnetron, which helped seal the alliance between Britain and the United States, spurred wartime technical breakthroughs, and greatly helped to win the war. In this talk, we will examine some of the key secrets shared by the Tizard mission, including the Whittle jet engine, a system for radar defense, and a proposal on the feasibility of nuclear weapons. We will also explore the historical ramifications of this astounding sharing of secrets across borders spurred by the dire exigencies of war, and draw lessons for the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises.

Most Valuable Cargo: The Tizard Mission in World War II

In 1947 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists debuted "the doomsday clock" icon as a symbolic representation of how close humanity was to self-annhiliation in the nuclear age. Initially set at 7 minutes to midnight it has been changed 22 times up until the present. There are multiple issues with the "minutes to midnight" framework that are crucial to examine: to what extent a relic of the cold war has relevance today; the ramifications of the "doomsday clock" being a key exemplar of the physics community as public educators across multiple generations; and the presumption that the rhetoric of catastrophism is needed to motivate non-scientists to be cognizant of serious issues raised by scientific research and technological developments. Understanding this history has been made even more urgent today as background to the decisions the scientific community makes about how to communicate with the public about the issue of climate change.

Past/Present: Does the Doomsday Clock Keep the Right Time?

To support physics instructors in improving or modifying physics activities for their courses, we investigate sixty-six research-based activities from eleven different research-based curricula by applying k-means cluster analysis. The best results were found when the program generates three design clusters. We mark these clusters as Thinking like a Scientist, Learning Concepts, and Scientific Reasoning. These three clusters indicate different design goals. In the Thinking like a Scientist cluster, activities emphasize the design of experiments by students, error analysis,
reasonableness checking, and making assumptions or simplifications. The Learning Concepts cluster focuses on the prediction of results and experimental observations. The scientific reasoning cluster emphasizes answering physics or math questions that do not use collected data and finding evidence by students to support their claims.

Diverse strategies for design physics activity by investigating research-based activities

Active learning has been shown to be more effective than passive lecture methods, but we have yet to establish a vocabulary with which to characterize different active learning methods. We investigated six active learning curricula in physics using the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS), which codes student and instructor activities in two minute intervals. We then used latent profile analysis on the resulting COPUS profiles to determine if these curricula could be sorted into similar groups based on common classroom features. We present our findings and discuss how latent profile analysis can be used to further the goal of describing active learning independently of lecture methods.

Characterizing Active Learning Environments in Physics using Latent Profile Analysis

We will describe two iterations of a fully open lab course in which natural science students (N=15,20) conceive, design, and carry out two extended experiments using open-source materials. A flipped-style is used whereby students set up experiments and take measurements without supervision, allowing the instruction time to focus on the more difficult parts of their empirical research cycles. In our analysis, we explore the merits and trade-offs of this radically open approach, whereby student agency is prioritized over the quantity and scientific quality of the inquiries. In student projects, initially unforeseen constraints or unexpected results usually require changes to the experimental design and sometimes even force students to alter their research questions. Happily, students make demonstrable progress towards becoming critical and independent researchers, especially in the conception and iterative design of their experimental methods. We also describe interdependencies amongst the open-inquiry and flipped-classroom teaching methods and the accessible open-source materials.

Assessing a flipped-lab course consisting of open-inquiry projects using Arduinos

The Essential Skills learning application has been iteratively developed for over 7 years and implemented as a regular weekly assignment with over 10,000 students at the Ohio State University for the algebra and calculus-based introductory physics course and the second-year physics major course. The assignments include mastery practice of basic skills such as trigonometry, algebra, vector math, and calculating work and torque. These skills are practiced multiple times throughout the semester to improve accuracy, fluency, and retention. We report on data showing that students typically increase on all of these factors throughout the semester, and we also find some evidence of transfer for hierarchical sets of skills. Though we will report on some pilot studies on potential benefits on exam performance, there are still open questions as to how or whether improvements on basic skills are helping to achieve larger scale and more complex instructional goals.

Learning basic physics skills via regular online mastery practice

This study investigated the impact of an instructional intervention on student scientific reasoning skills and general attitudes toward science. The intervention consisted of nine PhET simulations introduced to a general education physics class. Students manipulated the simulations while completing worksheets testing their comprehension of the concepts and the scientific reasoning being displayed. Completion of each PhET simulation activity took students about 50 minutes to complete. Lawson’s Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning was administered to assess improvement in student scientific reasoning skills, and the CLASS was used to assess changes in student attitudes towards science. Pre-to post Lawson results show gains in scientific reasoning. CLASS pre to post indicated overall shifts to expert-like responses. Qualitative data in the form of student surveys was collected and showed approval of the use PhET simulations in the class.

Effect of PhET simulations in a general education physics course

Conversations around the interactions of ethics, science, and society within STEM classrooms provide opportunities for students to practice large-scale ethical reasoning in the context of their future careers. We have designed and implemented curricular units which help instructors to scaffold these conversations in Texas State University STEM courses, including Modern Physics and Observational Astrophysics. We have collected and analyzed video data and written work in these course contexts. Our analysis has demonstrated that students’ scaffolded considerations of different stakeholder groups can build empathy and deepen their understanding of the broader context for ongoing ethical issues. We also see that students’ characterization of stakeholder groups’ motivations and identities can grow in complexity and nuance. In this talk, I will use classroom video and other artifacts to illustrate some examples we have identified where we see students building nuance and consider lessons for supporting students’ engagement with complex ethical issues in physics.

Building Nuance in Classroom Conversations about Ethics, Science, and Society

The Paradigms in Physics website provides a wide range of tested active engagement activities for upper division courses. Our team has been redesigning this site to add considerable "mortar" content between activities and to make the content more readily searchable. We have also been working to make it easier to keep the content fresh, and to give users a clearer perspective of how we use our own materials. The features of the new site will be introduced, and we will solicit audience feedback on how the site could better serve you.

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Mass Extinction Caused by Gravitational Instability inside the Earth

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