Students expectations in introductory university physics in UP Diliman

Abstract

College students who step inside a physics classroom at the start of a semester brings with them knowledge of physics concepts acquired from high school or developed on their own based from their experiences. Apart from this, they have their own set of "expectations" of themselves; what they expect to learn from the course, how much effort is expected of them by their teachers and their expectation on their performance in the course, that is, whether they expect to pass or not. These factors are believed to be significant in the physics learning process. In recent years, a number of studies dealt with student expectations in learning physics. Redish et al. developed the Maryland Physics Expectation (MPEX) Survey that probes student attitudes, beliefs and assumptions about physics. They conducted the survey to a set of experts and to 1500 students at the start and end of a term. They reported that there is a large gap between the expectations of experts and novices and observed a tendency for student expectations to deteriorate rather than improve as a result of a term of physics instruction. However, such studies to establish the general attitudes of students towards learning physics in the Philippines is not available.
In this paper, we gather relevant data on student expectations in physics through the MPEX Survey at the National Institute of Physics in the University of the Philippines Diliman. A comparison of student expectations and "expert" responses is also presented.