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IntroductionMany experts have predicted a drop in students’ academic performance due to an extended period of remote instruction and other harmful effects of the pandemic.MethodsAs university instructors and education researchers, we sought to investigate the effects of the pandemic on students’ preparation for college-level coursework and their performance in early college using mixed effects regression models. Data were collected from STEM students at a public research university in the southeastern United States.ResultsWe found that demographic gaps in high school preparation (as measured by ACT scores) between men and women, as well as underrepresented minority and majority students, remained relatively consistent after the start of the pandemic. These gaps were approximately 1 point (out of 36) and 3 points, respectively. However, the gap between first generation and continuing generation students increased from prior to 2020, to after 2020, going from approximately 1 point to 2 points. This gap in preparation was not accompanied by a corresponding shift in the demographics of the student population and there was no corresponding increase in the demographic gaps in students’ first term grades.DiscussionThe data seem to suggest that first-generation students in STEM suffered more from the changes to secondary instruction during the pandemic, but that college instructors were able to mitigate some of these effects on first-semester grades. However, these effects were only mitigated to the extent that they preserved the status quo of pre-pandemic inequities in undergraduate STEM education.

Racial biases, which harm marginalized and excluded communities, may be combatted by clarifying misconceptions about race during biology lessons. We developed a human genetics laboratory activity that challenges the misconception that race is biological (biological essentialism). We assessed the relationship between this activity and student outcomes using a survey of students' attitudes about biological essentialism and color-evasive ideology and a concept inventory about phylogeny and human diversity. Students in the human genetics laboratory activity showed a significant decrease in their acceptance of biological essentialism compared with a control group, but did not show changes in color-evasive ideology. Students in both groups exhibited increased knowledge in both areas of the concept inventory, but the gains were larger in the human genetics laboratory. In the second iteration of this activity, we found that only white students' decreases in biological essentialist beliefs were significant and the activity failed to decrease color-evasive ideologies for all students. Concept inventory gains were similar and significant for both white and non-white students in this iteration. Our findings underscore the effectiveness of addressing misconceptions about the biological origins of race and encourage more research on ways to effectively change damaging student attitudes about race in undergraduate genetics education.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of secondary instruction in the United States transitioned to an online environment. In many parts of the country, online schooling continued for upwards of two years. Many experts have hypothesized an “academic slide”—a reduction in student learning—following this period of online instruction. We investigated the change in student preparation for introductory college physics in incoming Stanford University students between the fall term of 2019 to the fall term of 2021. We did this by looking at the performance on a validated physics diagnostic exam that all Stanford students intending to take a physics course took before enrolling in an introductory physics course. We found no statistically or educationally significant change in scores. Despite many anecdotal faculty reports, at least for this population, the level of student preparation in physics and related math appears to be unchanged.

Back-of-the-envelope (BOTE) calculations require the use of estimations and approximations. They are used by expert physicists to simplify complex problems to obtain quick and approximate solutions. Though BOTE calculations are routine for experts in physics, they are not well defined in academic literature. In this study we interviewed 9 physicists working in academia and industry and characterized experts’ responses in terms of the decisions made during different stages of the solution process. These findings characterize the individual skills that students need to develop in order to solve BOTE problems. We find that BOTE calculations involve most of the same decisions as bigger research problems. Thus, BOTE problems represent authentic, real-world physics problems that present challenges undergraduate students are often not prepared to solve. This provides an interesting foundation for future work characterizing other factors that influence both students’ and experts’ decisions to perform BOTE calculations.

Previously, we had reported on the relationship between AP physics experience and exam scores, and student scores on the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation and in an introductory calculus-based mechanics course [E. W. Burkholder and C. E. Wieman, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 15, 020117 (2019)PRPECZ2469-989610.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.15.020117]. Two limitations to our previous work were that we aggregated data from algebra-based mechanics (AP physics 1) and calculus-based mechanics (AP physics C - Mechanics) courses, and that only 25% of the students who took AP physics reported their scores to the university; we addressed these limitations here. We found that there was no reporting bias in these scores for either AP course. We found that AP physics 1 (AP1) exam scores were predictive of students’ FMCE scores while AP physics C (APC) exam scores were not—this is consistent with our previous findings. We found that APC exam scores were more predictive of course grades in physics 1, but that students who scored a 5 on the AP1 exam also had high grades in physics 1, despite it being a calculus-based course. These results disagree with our previous findings that AP exam scores were not correlated with final exam scores after controlling for SAT or ACT math scores, likely due to the variability in course final exams from year to year. Though these results are for a single, highly selective university, they provide some key insights to educators about the value of AP courses. One important implication is that students who score a 5 on the AP1 exam can likely receive credit for the calculus-based introductory course, increasing access to higher level physics courses for students whose high schools do not have access to APC courses.

Previous work has looked at the relationship between high school preparation and student performance in calculus-based introductory mechanics (physics 1) courses. Here, we extend that work to look at performance in introductory calculus-based electricity and magnetism (physics 2), and we look at the significance of what college math courses have been completed in addition to high school preparation. Using multiple linear regression including these measures of prior preparation, we examine the correlation between taking various math courses in college and final exam scores in introductory physics courses at a highly selective west coast university. In physics 1, we find that prior college math coursework is not a predictor of physics 1 final exam score. In physics 2, we find that having taken a course in vector calculus is a strong predictor of physics 2 exam performance (effect size=0.58 standard deviations, p

We examined the variation in Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) preclass scores according to the type of physics class a student had in high school. This was done for students who had taken Physics 1 at a highly selective university. The majority of students had taken an Advanced Placement (AP) physics course, allowing us to examine in detail the correlation between FMCE score and both taking an AP course and the score on the AP exam. We also carried out regression analyses to determine how FMCE prescores and course final exam scores depend on taking an AP course and AP exam scores, when math SAT scores are included as a proxy of students’ general level of college preparation. Students who take any type of physics course in high school outscore those with no prior physics experience by 26%, but students who have taken AP physics do not significantly outperform those who have taken a normal high school physics course—many students who took AP physics scored very low on the FMCE. Furthermore, while taking AP physics predicts a statistically significant increase in FMCE scores, the effect size (0.30) is smaller than that seen for math SAT scores (0.47). We found that AP exam scores were not correlated with final exam scores after controlling for math SAT score. In all, the data indicate that, though taking an AP physics course is correlated with greater conceptual understanding of physics, scoring well on the AP physics exam may be a rather weak measure of conceptual understanding of physics or the mastery of physics one would expect students to achieve from an introductory university physics course. This work was done with an unusual population. Further studies are needed to determine how general the weak relationship is between AP exam performance and FMCE performance that we observed.