Tools for identifying courses that support development of expertlike physics attitudes

Abstract

Educators and researchers often use research-based assessments before and after instruction to measure the efficacy of courses. Limited resources exist for interpreting assessment results, particularly for attitudinal surveys. We present analyses and representations created with data from 192 introductory physics courses that educators and researchers can use to provide a context for interpreting results from the Colorado Learning Attitudes About Science Survey. The provided data came from the online Learning About STEM Student Outcomes platform and from the scientific literature. The representations include scatter plots of pretest and post-test scores and distributions of effect sizes. Educators and researchers can use these representations to show how courses compare to the larger database before and after instruction. Results almost always associated physics courses for nonscience majors with shifts to more expertlike attitudes, whereas this was the case for approximately one-third of introductory physics courses for science majors.