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Re: [Phys-l] Lecture Isn't Effective: More Evidence #2




In Lei Bao et al.’s (2009) study, comparisons of Chinese and U.S. students show that content knowledge and reasoning skills diverge. This research examined if content knowledge concerned with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) impacts the development of scientific-reasoning ability. (Source: Science; 1/30/2009, Vol. 323, Issue 5914, 586-587.) Hence, the effectiveness of lecture may vary depending on whether students come from Brazil, China, India, U.S. and so on.

Physics Education Research may still be “Physics Exaggeration Research” when they generalize their claims, for example, on the ineffectiveness of lectures without carrying more extensive studies on students worldwide. How rigorous are these research studies? Can education research studies deduce the effect of gender? What if there are 90% female students and 10 male students attending the physics lectures? Can education research studies calculate the effect of 50% American students, 50% chinese students?

The Mozart effect (Rauscher, Shaw & Ky, 1993) is the purported increase in spatial-reasoning performance immediately after exposure to a Mozart piano sonata. The experiment found a modest and temporary IQ increase in college students performing a specific kind of task while listening to a Mozart sonata, but there was no research studies carried out on babies. (The Governor of Georgia, Zell Miller, proposed a budget to provide every child born in Georgia with a CD of classical music.) The finding was proved to be a mystery after a 1999 review showed that over a dozen studies failed to verify the 1993 experiment. Is the ineffectiveness of lectures replicated worldwide? To what extent? If lectures are indeed ineffective, can physics education researchers calculate the cultural effects on the ineffectiveness of lectures?

Lastly, what is the ineffectiveness of lectures when simulations, videos, live demos are incorporated? Because traditional lectures have been found to be ineffective, interactive lectures should be abolished as well? Are there studies conducted to confirm that Redish’s proposal on interactive lecture demonstrations are equally ineffective?

The greater concern is not the effectiveness of lectures, but the rigor of physics education research and its claim.


Best regards,
Alphonsus


Quoting Joseph Bellina <inquirybellina@comcast.net>:

I agree completely that when an 82 year old man marries a 28 year old woman, there is motivation involved. I will agree that motivation is a necessary component, but you have provided not evidence that it is sufficient.
Again, are you claiming that the chinese mind is evolutionarily different and that is why they appear to learn well by lecture?


joe

Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. Ph.D.
Retired Professor of Physics
Co-Director
Northern Indiana Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Collaborative
574-276-8294
inquirybellina@comcast.net