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Re: [Phys-l] Textbooks vs multimedia



I heard Sadler talk about his survey work just prior to it being published. There are so many other factors here (by his own admission) that even declaring this 'negative evidence' goes too far. Once again, despite John's constant reference this or that research (psychological research in essence--something we'd be wise to remember), common sense should not be ignored. Students who 'intelligently' use their text book (which implies they can actually read such), should certainly gain a bit over those who simply listen to the lectures, or do the in-class exercises, etc. My own exhortations about using the book is that, unlike class which by necessity will deal in depth with only certain topics and be limited in examples and background information, the book is organized to give a much more complete treatment, with more examples, more proofs, more history. Students who take advantage of the resource will certainly profit--at least a little.

[Example of what Sadler said: The success without a text book often came from classes where the instructor had basically prepared extensive notes and provided them to the class--essentially a 'book'. I may be wrong, but as I recall, much of the evaluation here was by grades, or success in a College course to evaluate the High School course.]

Rick

Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556

----- Original Message ----- From: "John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>
To: "'Forum for Physics Educators'" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 8:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Textbooks vs multimedia



There is no evidence available to show that one standard text works better
than another.

I just remembered, there is some negative evidence for the use of textbooks.
Philip Sadler of Harvard did a survey of college physics success in physics
vs the usage of textbooks.

1. Classes that used textbooks had lower success in college physics than
classes that used no text.
2. Classes where the teacher finished the book, did worse than classes
where the teacher only finished part of the book.

So the success went down as the book usage went up. This survey did not
differentiate between different types of books, and was mostly for
conventionally taught physics classes because IE is a small fraction of
classes nationwide. I believe his report is on his web site.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


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