Physics Dept., University of Maryland at College Park, College Park, MD 20472-4111

and

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, 6560 Braddock Road, Alexandria, VA 22312

Using written questionnaires, I surveyed introductory physics students about how they study and about how they would advise a hypothetical student to study if she were trying to learn physics deeply with no grade pressure. The survey teases apart students’ "epistemological" beliefs about learning and understanding physics from their more course-specific beliefs about how to earn high grades. The results indicate that students perceive "trying to understand physics well" to be a significantly different activity from "trying to do well in the course."

This article explores why physics students, even those who work hard, often study in ways considered unproductive by physicists [1]. Despite the repeated pleas of their instructors, many students memorize formulas and problem-solving algorithms, instead of trying to develop a deeper conceptual understanding.

Previous research has uncovered one of the reasons for this. Sometimes, rote-based study habits stem from naive epistemological beliefs—beliefs about the nature of physics knowledge and learning [2-3]., For instance, as Hammer [4] discusses, some epistemologically naive students think that physics knowledge consists of weakly-connected pieces of information. These students may believe that knowing facts, formulas, and algorithms constitutes a full understanding of the material. When told that a deep understanding is important, the student might not understand what that means. By contrast, more sophisticated students conceive of physics knowledge as a unified, coherent, richly-interconnected whole. These students know that rote learning cannot lead to real understanding.

Although epistemological beliefs explain many aspects of students’ study behavior, they do not tell the whole story. In this study, I try to tease apart students’ epistemological beliefs from their more course-specific beliefs about getting good grades. My questionnaire focuses on the differences between how physics students study and how they would advise a hypothetical student to study if she were trying to learn physics deeply, with no grade pressure. Students’ advice to the hypothetical student reflects their epistemological beliefs about what it means to learn and understand physics [5]. By contrast, their own self-reported study habits reflect a combination of habits, epistemological beliefs, and course-specific beliefs about how to get high grades.

The results indicate that most students perceive learning physics deeply to be a significantly different activity from trying to do well in the course. Specifically, students report spending more time focusing on formulas and practice problems and less time focusing on concepts and real-life examples than they would spend if grades didn’t matter. In this paper, I use the word "distortion" to denote these differences between the student’s self-reported behavior and the behavior they suggest to the hypothetical student who cares only about understanding. Most students who substantially distort their study habits believe that failure to do so would result in lower grades. Furthermore, students’ grades do not correlate with the extent of these study-habit distortions; high- and low-achievers all "play the game."

After describing my methodology and presenting these results in detail, I will discuss why students (reportedly) distort their study habits [6].

[1] The existence of this problem is discussed in L. C. McDermott, "What we teach and what is learned - Closing the gap," Am. J. Phys. 59, 301-315 (1991).

[2] M. Schommer, "Effects of beliefs about the nature of knowledge on comprehension," J. Ed. Psych. 82(3), 406-411 (1990).

[3] B. Eylon and F. Reif, "Effects of knowledge organization on task performance," Cognition and Instruction 1(1), 5-44 (1984).

[4] D. Hammer, "Epistemological beliefs in introductory physics," Cognition and Instruction 12(2), 151-183 (1994).

[5] On surveys, students’ responses also reflect how they think they are supposed to answer.

[6] This research also led to results, reported elsewhere, concerning the correlations between epistemological beliefs, self-reported study habits, and academic performance. See A. Elby, "Why do epistemologically sophisticated students perform better in physics classes?", unpublished manuscript.