A comparison of cognitive skills between completes and dropouts in a college physics course

Abstract

Separate tests of mathematics skills, proportions and translations between words, and mathematical expression given the first week of class were correlated with performance for students who completed a college physics course (completes) and students who dropped the course (drops). None of the measures used discriminated between completes and drops as groups. However, the correlations between score on the test of math skills and on both of the measures involving mathematical reasoning (proportions, and translations) were dramatically different for the two groups. For the completes, these correlations were slightly negative, but not significant. For the drops, the correlation was positive and signficant at the p < 0.01 level. This suggests the possibility that the students who complete the course tend to have independent cognitive skills for the “mechanical” mathematical operations and for questions requiring some degree of reasoning, while, in contrast, the same skills for students at high risk for dropping overlap significantly. The study also found that when students are given the results of mathematics skills tests in a diagnostic mode, with feedback on specific areas of weakness and time to remediate with self study, the correlation between mathematics and physics is lower than previously reported values.

Testing a model of science process skills acquisition: An interaction with parents' education, preferred language, gender, science attitude, cognitive development, academic ability, and biology knowledge

“…Correlations between cognitive development and science knowledge (rpre = .40, rpost = .60) were similar to results obtained by Fleming and Malone (1983) in their meta-analysis of cognitive level (Piagetian and Bloomian) with elementary science (r = .41), general science (r = .60), life science ( r = .47), and physical science/physics (r = .49), and a college-level study by Lawson et al (1975) among four Piagetian tasks and ACT-Science ( r = .40) and STEP-Science ( r = .50), but were higher than those reported by college-level studies done by Hudson (1986) in a study of college physics students ( r = .22) and Mitchell and Lawson (1988) who used a measure of prior science knowledge ( r = .26). In contrast, coefficients from path analysis were lower and the opposite direction (Ppre = -.29, Ppost = -.05), indicating that students with lower cognitive developmclit did somewhat better on the pretest than students with higher reasoning ability.…”

“…Mitchell and Lawson (1988) reported that Piagetian cognitive development was correlated with a 12-item test of prior knowledge in genetics (r = .26). Ability to perform proportional reasoning tasks and final physics grades showed a moderate correlation of .22 (Hudson, 1986). Walkosz and Yeany (1984) measured the cognitive development using the TOLT and correlated it to the students' course grade (r = .30).…”

Predicting course performance in freshman and sophomore physics courses: Women are more predictable than men

“…In discussing the identification of predictors of dropout versus completion of physics courses, Hudson (1986) confirmed that developing the "magic bullet" in the form of a pretest to predict students as high risk for dropout will not be easy. He recommended taking a closer look at how students think, teasing out those skills in subtle and indirect ways.…”

A comparison of mathematics backgrounds between American and South African physics students

“…Hudson and Rottmann (1981) found a correlation of 0.42 between physics performance measured as a total numerical score on a multiple choice test covering six topics from algebra and trigonometry. Later, Hudson (1986) found a correlation of 0.24 between physics grades and scores on a modification of the test used earlier. Pridmore (1978) concluded that students' mathematical ability in word problems and trigonometry are more important than algebra and geometry for predicting grades at a community college.…”