Challenging
First Year Students
Steve Barrett, John Fry, Uta Klein, Lynn Moran
Department of Physics
UoL Conference, June 23rd , 2009

Issues
How to make an efficient transition from school to University?
How to keep the learning outcome and success rate high?
Are there particularly suitable teaching methods?
In Physics, special attention is required to:
 understanding of unseen and more complex problems
 develop/challenge logical and critical thinking
 practice more mathematics
 offer tools for self assessment
 practice time management

Introduction and Motivation :
Physics Olympics in Freshers’ Week
The Undergraduate Physics Olympics (UPO) is a half-day event
organised for freshers and is run by staff and existing
undergraduate students.
It is held in Freshers’ Week, slotted in between scheduled
university and departmental information sessions.
Goal:
To enhance the first-year students' experience by allowing teams
of freshers the opportunity to compete against each other in
physics-based hands-on tasks and quizzes:
It enables students to be introduced to the departmental
laboratories, staff and more senior students in an informal
environment at an early stage in the year.
Statistical and anecdotal evidence both indicate that the UPO
enhances the first year experience and helps to build peer
support groups.

First Year Courses for Comparison
Course Lectures Assessed Tutorials Problem Group Assessed Class Contents
Exercises Classes Work Homework Test
A 2 - - 1* - 2*5% 15% classic
B 2 2 - 1 - 6*5% - new
C 2 - 1/4 - - - - new
D - 10/6% - 1 2 4*5% - classic
E 2 - - 1-2 - - 30% new
Courses differ by contents (classical physics on University level or new
fields of physics) and by the types of assessment, exercises, problem
classes etc., in particular
B: Problem classes and problem solving strategies, use of electronic
homework system ‘Mastering Physics’ (Pearson)
C: Course in traditional manner of lectures and non-assessed tutorials
D: No lectures but ‘techniques’ session, groups of 5 students (project-
based learning), and use of ‘Mastering Physics’
E: Traditional course with a larger class test.

Feedback
• Students encouraged to give feedback at all times, and they made
use of this opportunity.
• Progress/issues were discussed in students-staff committee
sessions regularly.
• Modified modules (courses B and D) were evaluated by dedicated
questionnaires.
• In general, students were satisfied with organisation and contents,
but they said ‘that they had to work harder for those modules’.
• Details of feedback depend significantly on abilities of students.
Weak students had unexpected difficulties (but our ‘open-door’
policy helped here).
Brighter students felt that they were up to the challenge.

Module Results 1. year students only
(63)
Course Students Average >70% <40%
classical
A 86 69% 46% 10%
new+elearn
B 74 63% 33% 8%
new+traditional
C 78 55% 21% 27%
project-based
D 83 60% 33% 16%
new+class test
E 87 48% 19% 43%
Around 40% of students achieved >70% in at least 2 modules.
Around 25% of students failed 2 or more modules.

Typical Module Mark-
Attendance Correlation
Module Mark
100
Course D
80
60
Mark
40
20
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Attendance
Attendance is important and is monitored

Conclusions
• The traditional approach (courses C and E) where students are
given problems to do in their own time does not give
satisfactory results. The failure rate in both courses was too
high (E by 20%!) which triggered a revision of the courses
(contents and teaching method).
• Students learn better when required work that is assessed
week by week (courses A, B and D). Weaker students did profit
from problem classes and group work. The effort for B and D,
however, was too large for ‘routine’ teaching.
• Independently of the type of the module more than a quarter of
the students achieved excellent results (>70%). Ten per cent
of the students achieved excellent results in all 5 modules, and
50% in at least one module. The excellent students can and
should be challenged more.
We will develop the system further.

Next Steps
• Investigate further the correlation to mathematics modules,
e.g. course E rather mathematical.
• Try to improve the synchronisation of mathematics modules
and physics contents. It is planned to add new mathematics
modules. Also problem classes are excellent tools for practice
mathematics within physics context.
• Next pilots :
We plan to add 2 ½ ‘introduction’ days in September which
should revise A-level mathematics in context of a physics task
(e.g. ‘Trip to Mars’).
Use more and more widely the available electronic homework
system (assessed and for practice).