Student Textbook Use in Introductory Physics

This article reports on a two part study of extent to which students use a textbook in calculus-based introductory physics courses for scientists and engineers. The first aspect of the study is an investigation of how the placement of worked examples influences student use of the textbook. The second aspect studied is how course assignments can be used to encourage students to read the textbook. Motivation Two of the authors of this paper, Cummings and Cooney, are involved in a project with E.F. Redish and P.W. Laws to develop a research-informed introductory physics textbook for use in calculus-based courses. This textbook, called Understanding Physics [1] is based on Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick and Walker[2]. Published by Willey and Sons publishers, the book will be formally released for the fall of 2004. However, a preliminary version of the book is already in use at several test sites including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Millersville University. The textbook project noted above is central to this study. This is the textbook that the students in the study used. It also motivated the research questions: To what extent do students read their textbook? Are there course specific (contextual) issues that impact the answer to this question? Does the placement of worked examples impact the answer? Do well informed students have a preference in terms of where the worked examples are located? Background In order to investigate these questions, we conducted a series of surveys at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute during the spring of 2002. In addition, an end-of-thesemester survey was given at Millersville University. Understanding Physics was the text used in both courses and both were calculus-based introductory physics courses for scientists and engineers. The course at Rensselaer is taught in a “Studio” environment. The course at Millersville has a more standard format with separate lecture and laboratory. Data for this study was collected at Millersville University in the form of a single, end-of-the semester survey regarding student textbook use. Questions on the survey were identical to questions on surveys given at Rensselaer which are discussed below. Data was collected at Rensselaer from a series of nine student surveys. On the first day of the semester, one of the authors (Cummings) asked for volunteers to participate in a study of student textbook use. Those students that agreed to participate would be provided with a free Xerox copy of the textbook. This copy would be identical to the textbook for sale in the bookstore, except that the placement of the worked examples changed half way through the semester. The students were informed that volunteers would be expected to respond to weekly surveys and that the results would then be used to determine whether the placement of the worked examples had an impact on student use of the textbook. The pool of volunteers was asked to answer questions on an initial survey which probed the students’ general attitudes toward and behaviors in regard to reading. Based on the results of this initial survey, gender, pre-instruction scores on the Force and Motion Conceptual Exam[3], and the professor teaching their section of the course, the group of volunteers was split into two cohorts with matching group characteristics. The group characteristics were also a good match to the class as a whole (volunteers and non-volunteers). Students in one cohort, half of the total volunteer group, were given a Xerox copy of the text in which the first eight chapters to be covered in the course had the worked examples located at end of the chapter and the last eight chapter to be covered had worked examples interspersed at appropriate points throughout the chapter. We will call this cohort “Group A”. The other cohort, called “Group B” was given a Xerox copy in which the first eight chapters had sample problems interspersed through the chapters and the last eight chapters had sample problems at the end of the chapters. This experimental design is summarized in Table 1. Table 1: A summary of the experimental design for the Rensselaer Study