Assessment of the Undergraduate Degrees in Physics Kansas State University Draft prepared by Dean Zollman 9

Assessment of the Undergraduate Degrees in Physics
Kansas State University
Draft prepared by Dean Zollman 9/8/01

The KSU Department of Physics offers three undergraduate degrees.

B.S. in Physics	Appropriate for a student who wishes an intense technical education in physics and/or is preparing for graduate study in physics, astrophysics or a closely related field. Those students who complete this degree and who enter the workforce directly are likely to be employed in the technical industry.
B.S. in General Physics	Appropriate for a student who has an interest in physics but who is not likely to continue studying physics beyond the baccalaureate. Student who complete this degree and continue their education enter professional schools, engineering graduate studies, etc. Those students who enter the workforce are likely to be employed in the technical industry or in secondary school teaching.
B.A. in Physics	Appropriate for a student who has an interest in physics and seeks a broad liberal arts education. Student who complete this degree and continue their education are likely to attend a professional school. Those who enter the workforce are likely to be employed in the technical industry.

The general goals for each of these undergraduate degree programs include providing minimum technical education necessary for work as a physicist, assuring oral and written communication skills, and preparing our students for either employment or advanced study and research.

To be successful, physics students must receive an education in several different areas as described below and must satisfy minimum standards of performance in each of these areas. Without minimum requirements to assure competency, students will not be prepared for employment or advanced study in physics. Thus, the Department, in its own best interest, must maintain the standards and assess the students’ attainment of those standards.

The absence of any accreditation programs makes physics somewhat unique among technical and scientific disciplines. The professional associations such as the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society; and the American Association of Physics Teachers have concluded that physics students are served best by allowing a wide variety of options within the physics baccalaureate rather than prescribing a curriculum. Thus, assessment of a physics curriculum must be based on guidelines rather than accreditation criteria. The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has published a set of general guidelines which we can use. The statements in italics in the following paragraphs are taken from those guidelines.

Central to the physics major is the set of advanced undergraduate courses the student is required to take. There should be a rigorous, advanced treatment of topics in Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics, Optics, Quantum Physics, and Experimental Physics. All may have only the elementary physics course as a prerequisite. At KSU we offer courses in each of these areas and thus directly meet these guidelines. Courses in each of these areas are required for all students who complete a BS in Physics. For a B.S. in General Physics a beginning level course (Physics 3) in quantum physics is required. However, an advanced course is not because the students completing the General Physics degree are not planning to continue post baccalaureate studies in physics.

For each of the subject areas the content coverage is compared to the AAPT recommendation. The students’ mastery of that material is determined by the performance on exams and homework during the course.

*American Association of Physics Teachers Statement*	*KSU Physics Department Approach*
*Mechanics*: The mathematical level of the course should require the use of differential equations. Central forces should be studied through at least the development of Kepler's laws. The study of systems of particles should pursue the consequences of the conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum; the latter should include the use of the inertia tensor. The analysis of rigid body motion should include the application of Euler's equations. Lagrangian mechanics should be treated in sufficient depth for its application to small oscillations and coupled oscillators.	These topics are addressed in PHYS 522, Mechanics. Because of limited time the last topic in treated superficially, if at all. However, oscillations are treated in depth in PHYS 623, Relativity & Waves. (Required for all three physics degrees.)
*Electricity and Magnetism*: The mathematical level of this course should require the use of field operators and vector integral theorems. The treatment of electrostatics should encompass Coulomb's law; the electrostatic field and potential; the Laplace and Poisson equations; electric dipoles; multipole expansions of potentials; electrostatic energy and force; capacitance; polarization; dielectrics; and the electric displacement field. The topics of electric current, Ohm's law, and the continuity equation will lead to discussions of magnetism, including the magnetic induction field; the Biot-Savart law; Ampere's law; magnetic energy, force, and torque; magnetization; and the magnetic field. Maxwell's equations should be considered essential components of this course and they should be applied to' simple geometries. Complex waves could also be introduced. If time permits, relativistic electrodynamics could be briefly considered.	The primary course for study of these topics PHYS 532, Electricity & Magnetism. Because of limited time the last topic in treated superficially, if at all. Additional topics, particularly electromagnetic waves and relativistic effects, are treated in PHYS 623, Relativity & Waves. (Required for all three physics degrees.)
*Thermodynamics/Statistical Mechanics*: A thorough grounding in the concepts of temperature, work, specific heat, compressibility, and entropy should result from this course. The laws of thermodynamics, from the zeroth to the third should be discussed, with a thorough discussion of the import of the second law. The four thermodynamic generating functions (internal energy, enthalpy, Helmholtz function, and Gibbs function), together with Maxwell's relations, should be used to solve practical problems such as gas laws, engines, radiation, and phase transitions. The kinetic theory of gases, partition functions, and, as possible, ensembles are covered. Here is the student's first exposure to Maxwell-Boltzmann, Fermi-Dirac, and Bose-Einstein statistics.	These topics are addressed in Physics 564, Thermodynamics & Statistical Mechanics. (Required for BS in Physics and BA in Physics.)
*Optics*: Both geometrical and physical optics should be included. Enough~ time should be spent on thin lenses and mirrors to provide an understanding of simple optical systems and such concepts as magnification, entrance and exit pupils, and stops. The treatment of physical optics should include a discussion of two-beam and multiple-beam interference, diffraction at apertures, and the application of those principles to simple interferometers, double-slit diffraction, the diffraction grating, and diffraction-limit resolution. Polarization and reflection should also be included. As time permits, there should be selective coverage of thick lenses, lens aberration, lens design, vision, color, ray tracing, birefrigence, spectroscopy, scattering, transfer functions, radiometry, and photometry. Some mention of lasers, holography, fiber optics, gradient-index optics, phase conjugation, and optical computing would tie the course to current technological development.	Introduction to Optics, PHYS 561, provides students with a detailed study of the material described in first two sentences (to the phrase “As time permits)”. The remaining topics are covered superficially in this course. A second, optional course – PHYS 652, Applied Optics –provides a treatment of the remaining topics. .
*Quantum Physics: (a) The historical foundations of quantum physics, blackbody radiation, Compton scattering, the Davisson-Germer experiment, and the Bohr-Sommerfeld model of the atom should be established.* (b) The quantum physics course should include in-depth applications of the Schrodinger equation to one-dimensional problems such as the square-well potential, barrier scattering and tunneling, and the harmonic oscillator. (c) The treatment of quantized angular momentum should include some elementary work with operator methods and commutators. (d) Three-dimensional problems should, at a minimum, describe the hydrogen atom and should include relativistic corrections. (e) If this course is extended into a second semester there should be applications of essential quantum concepts to major fields of contemporary physics, e.g., multiple particle wave functions vis-a-vis elementary quark models, shell theory applied to nuclear models, group theory, and matrix methods applicable to the theory of solids.	Items listed in sentence (a) are treated in Physics 3, PHYS325. An introduction to the topics described in (b), (d) and (e) are also included in Physics 3, but not in the depth describe by AAPT in the statement to the left. Physics 3 is required of all three physics degrees. The topics described in (b) are extended and treated in depth in PHYS 611, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics. Topics listed in (c) are also studied in PHYS 611. Some treatment of the topics in (d) are included in PHYS 611. This course is required of students completing the BS in Physics or the BA in Physics. More depth for the topics in (d) and a study of the topics (e) are included in PHYS 709, Applied Quantum Mechanics, which is required of students completing a BS in Physics.
*Experimental Physics:* The goal of this laboratory course is to give the student experience with real world apparatus such as lasers, high field magnets, detectors, radioactive sources, vacuum equipment, and sophisticated electronics (at the level of lock-in amplifiers and multichannel analyzers). The schedule should be a blend of classic experiments illustrating concepts from electricity and magnetism and quantum physics (the Franck-Hertz experiment, Zeeman effect with ions, measurement of the speed of light, etc.) as well as experiments designed to convey the flavor of contemporary experimental physics. Examples of the latter are experiments on tunnel junctions, angular correlation of gamma rays, nuclear decay spectroscopy, and magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Special attention should be given to written communication of scientific information.	With four different courses providing students experience with experimentation, KSU physics students far exceed the AAPT guidelines. The physics students begin their formal education in experimentation with the laboratory components of Experimental and Computational Physics (PHYS 122) and Physics 3 (PHYS 325). They continue with Physics Laboratory (PHYS 506). These courses are required of all physics students. Students working toward a BS in Physics also complete Physical Measurements and Instrumentation (PHYS 636}. These courses require the students to work in collaborative groups and to prepare written reports describing their investigations and the underlying physics. Thus, these courses provide our faculty the opportunity to determine the level of our students’ ability to communicate scientific concepts and results. In addition, all physics students are encouraged to become involved in the research program of a faculty member. Almost all of the BS in Physics students take advantage of this opportunity. Many of them work in experimental physics.

In all of the courses except those listed under Experimental Physics, students’ mastery of the topics is determined by their performance on exams and homework. As part of the annual faculty review, teaching portfolios, which include syllabus, exams and other assignments, are prepared for each member of the teaching faculty. These portfolios are available for peer review. For the PHYS 506 and PHYS 636 and the experimental components of PHYS 325 and PHYS 122 the students’ mastery is determined by the ability to prepare written and oral communications about the physics and experimental procedures involved in their study.

Additional student views of our program are obtained during “exit” interviews which occur during a student’s last semester in our program. During these interviews we ascertain how the students feel that our program has met their expectations and how they see that their physics degree will fit with their future plans.

We also attempt to obtain similar information from our graduates. However, to date these contacts have been rather informal.

The success of our graduates provides supplemental information about the Department's ability to meet its goals. One measure of success is the awards received by departmental majors. Physics students at KSU have been selected as Rhodes and Goldwater Scholars. Our majors have also received stipends to study in Geissen (Germany) and Prague. KSU Physics majors have also earned Ph.D.s in leading doctoral programs. Our former students are conducting research in private industry, national laboratories and universities, while others are teaching in schools, colleges and universities. Thus, our assessment as the students move through our program coupled with the quality of jobs and graduate programs after finishing a KSU undergraduate degree in physics provides ample evidence that the Department of Physics is providing a high quality education to its students.