Re: [Phys-l] Textbooks vs multimedia

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

OK, but this points up the problem that standard texts are probably not that
well written.  The conventional texts are clotted with too much material and
are a mile wide but an inch deep.  This is probably the major effect on the
textbook result.

My point is that common sense is not necessarily a good guide.  Students use
common sense when they answer questions such as which pushes more a truck or
a car when the truck hits a stationary car.  But they generally answer
wrong.  Many results from research are counterintuitive, and this is very
true of educational research.  One would assume that an intensive enrichment
program designed by teachers would result in significant improvement in
students, but a program which bears no resemblance to the curriculum
resulted in a huge improvement on a general IQ test according to
Feuerstein's experiment, but the teacher intervention did not.  One would
assume that rigorous physics courses over 5 years would improve the level of
student thinking, but this apparently does not happen in China according to
the recent Science article.  One would assume that explaining to a child
that a zig-zag line is longer would convince them to give that answer, but
consistently they do not.  In an experiment they found that only hopping
both courses, or having 2 people walk them simultaneously changed the
answer.  On the other hand wait a year, and they understand this
spontaneously.  One would assume that after experiments where students
measure volume by displacement of water that they would understand that two
identical sized marbles of different weights push up water in a graduated
cylinder by the same amount when they totally sink.  But a significant
number of them still do not understand this.  The list of discrepant events
goes on.

I contend that most books are written by the seat of the pants and are not
very good.  The multimedia survey showed that students learned better from a
multimedia script than from the conventional text.  Also I have referred to
Lawson who showed that text in the form of a learning cycle works better
than conventionally written text.

I do not recall that Sadler saw fit to put that comment into his survey. It
is possible that I missed it, so could someone point out that section to me?
And yes his evaluation was by grades in college to evaluate the factors that
contributed to success in college.  One thing that he did say which to many
would be counterintuitive is that taking higher level math courses in HS was
a much better predictor of success in a college physics course than a HS
physics course.  Actually this was a better predictor than the presence or
absence of a book.  But this is the only evidence I have seen with respect
to the use of textbooks.  I would be happy to have some different evidence
if anyone could find it.

As to proofs, most students just treat them as meaning that it is alright to
use the equations.  For this result look at Redish's MPEX results.  But
other things cited that are in texts may or may not be beneficial to
learning.  Again common sense is just a belief or conviction, and not
evidence.  As to history in texts, a lot of it is flat wrong.  There is a
very revealing article in the current AJP about this.  Actually books seem
to just copy each other in this respect despite the numerous articles
written about history using first hand evidence.

What I see is that people who already know physics tend to think that most
students learned the way they did.  But I would call this a misconception.
Part of the problem is that you mentally reorganize your memories to fit
your preconceived notions.  We all do this.  We do not really perceive the
developmental steps that happened along the way because as we change to a
different view we see the previous way of thinking in a new fashion.  The
result is that we can not really see accurately what happened mentally.
This is why research must be our guide when available.

But yes there are a few who can learn from conventional books, but I contend
this is a very precious few.  So in the end it would be better for us to
change the teaching method to accommodate how they learn than to try
fruitlessly to fight the students.  So books written using cognitive and
science education research as a guide could be helpful.  But if properly
designed multimedia is available why not use it?  The paper on multimedia
did say that texts would not go away because they contain other things that
instructors find useful.

We currently have a large population which views both science and math very
negatively.  If we are to survive as a society this needs to be changed, so
we need to educate not just the privileged few, but the many.  According to
the Lawson test most people do not understand correlational evidence, so
most people really do not understand how medical research can show that
things are either dangerous or beneficial.  (approximately <5% of HS seniors
get the correlational question correct).  Lawson has shown the evolution is
very difficult to understand below the theoretical level of thinking because
it involves a process that cannot be seen.  It is no wonder that the fights
over teaching evolution are rampant in our society.  Supposedly educated
people are elected to state boards, and mandate the teaching of alternative
"theories" because WE have failed to educate them.  I include myself!

Oh, and calling it psychological research is designed to denigrate it.
Psychological research is very difficult because you have to tease out
subtle things from among many factors.  But it is not inferior just because
it is not physics.  There are many counterintuitive things, which do not fit
comment sense, which have been shown by psychological research.  One of the
most interesting recent ones is that people who have no ability to create
long term memories can still learn procedures.  So these people can learn to
play games and become more accurate even then the hippocampus is damaged.
They may have no memories of anything except for the last 3 minutes, and the
time 20 years ago before the damage, yet they can still learn with
absolutely no long term recall of recent events.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

  

> 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.]