Brasil Final Report - Department of Physics - The Ohio State University

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The students in our classes are more diverse than they were twenty years ago, and more of
them will be ethnic minorities in the next twenty years. Physics has a poor track record in attracting
ethnic minorities and women. The number of women who receive bachelor's degrees in physics has
increased to nineteen percent but has remained nearly level for the last three years. Women
currently earn more than half of all the bachelor's degrees in the life sciences and about forty percent
of those in chemistry and mathematics. Many talented students share widespread perceptions that
physics is not only an unexciting field in which to work but that all physicists are European males.
Undergraduate physics departments must respond constructively and creatively to these
changes in physics, the workplace, and undergraduate physics students. Fortunately undergraduate
physics departments have several advantages as they face the future. First, they are made up of
physicists. Physicists are generally intelligent if a touch arrogant. They take a "can do" approach
and work hard if they are committed to a project.
The job market for physics students has been very good for the last several years. In fact,
the salaries offered by industrial employers are so high that it is difficult to retain new high school
physics teachers. Undergraduate enrollments have stabilized in the last two years, particularly in
the bachelors-granting institutions. Physics graduates are widely recognized as good candidates for
graduate or professional school in a variety of disciplines as well as for jobs in industry. They are
nearly all hard-working and generally intelligent.
Recent data indicate that 28% of high school students complete a course in physics, a
significant increase from 20% ten years ago. This provides departments with better-prepared
freshmen, but it implies that the introductory course in physics should not repeat material already
covered in high school. Should the current trend towards teaching physics before chemistry or
biology grow, the demand for secondary physics teachers will escalate and increase the existing
shortage of well-prepared physics teachers.
Finally, over the last twenty years, a group of physicists within physics departments have
undertaken the study of how students learn physics. Their work has evolved into a subdiscipline of
physics, physics education research (PER). At present, PER has developed a body of knowledge
about student learning of physics which has begun to form the base of new curricular material. The
research also indicates that students learn best when they are actively engaging the material rather
than passively listening to a lecture. We know a lot about helping students learn physics, and we
can improve our courses and make physics accessible to a wider variety of students. The research
base on learning physics prepared within physics departments by physicists is unique to physics.
It gives our discipline a major advantage.
The physics community through its three major professional associations, the American
Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), the American Physical Society (APS), and the American
Institute of Physics (AIP), has recognized the need for change within undergraduate physics. The
three societies have organized conferences of physicists and department chairs to discuss the
situation. From these activities, we have learned several lessons that will guide our efforts to
respond to the changes in the environment of undergraduate physics.
Physicists recognize that we need to take action to improve undergraduate physics, both for
non-majors and for majors. The declining enrollments have alarmed even those who deal primarily
with graduate students since enrollment in first year graduate programs has begun to reflect the
declining number of undergraduate physics majors. AAPT, APS and AIP have jointly formed the
National Task Force on Undergraduate Physics to determine the best strategy for revitalizing
programs in undergraduate physics.