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Re: [Phys-L] Indicators ofquality teaching(Was:MOOC:EdxOffers Mechanics course byProf.Walter Lewin)



On 6/24/2013 3:56 PM, John Clement wrote:
The data was published by Rao, and it was just looking at raw FCI and Lawson
scores. The
Chinese scored significantly higher than US students on the FCI, but were
the same on the Lawson test. This was explained as the Chinese have 4 years
of physics while many US students have none.

Just a clarification. While the Chinese may have "four years of physics" it does not mean four years of close to 180 instruction hours per year as we do here. Sciences tends to be taught in China (and mostly elsewhere) in parallel, so every student may get 2-3 years of chem, 3-4 of physics, and 2-3 years of bio. But each year is two, perhaps three, weekly hours. So in total those students may get, perhaps, double the typical US hours but no more. I also find it hard to believe that *all* students in China take 4 years of physics -- I'd suspect 3 to 4 depending on the student's interests, and some perhaps even less than that.

Ze'ev

The scores were accumulated
over a number of schools as I recall, but I would have to go back to the
paper to figure out how many students were involved in the study. It was a
reasonable sample size as I recall.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX