Comparing Assessment Data Between Learning and Teaching Assistant Supported Studios
Bryan Stanley
Colorado State University
Physics Major
Mentored by Dr. J.T. Laverty
Learning Assistants (LAs) are becoming more common in university physics courses in efforts to improve student learning. Kansas State University introductory physics for engineering majors courses have both a lecture and studio component. Each studio is run by a primary (faculty, instructor, or advanced grad student) and a secondary (a graduate or advanced undergraduate Teaching Assistant (TA), or LAs). This allows us to make a relatively clean comparison of the effects of having TAs or LAs in the studios. We studied the differences in conceptual understanding and attitudes toward physics between students who were in either TA or LA supported studios. At the beginning and end of the engineering physics I course, students took the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS). For engineering physics II, students took the Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA) and CLASS.
Acknowledgments
NSF REU grant PHY-1461251 and Kansas State University Department of Physics KSUPER
Poster (presented at the 2018 AAPT and PERC Conference in Washington, DC)