Click, Watch, Learn: The Impact of Student Self-Study Materials on Physics E&M Course Outcomes

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Hirons, James K., Perry, Jonathan D., Nodurft, Dawson T., Crawford, Scott, Bassichis, William, Erukhimova, Tatiana L.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866918126006829056
author Hirons, James K.
Perry, Jonathan D.
Nodurft, Dawson T.
Crawford, Scott
Bassichis, William
Erukhimova, Tatiana L.
author_facet Hirons, James K.
Perry, Jonathan D.
Nodurft, Dawson T.
Crawford, Scott
Bassichis, William
Erukhimova, Tatiana L.
contents Performance in introductory courses, particularly physics, is often crucial for student success in STEM majors and can impact an individual's tendency to persist in their chosen field. To enhance students' individual learning experiences, faculty at many universities have worked to develop open-access, self-study materials to help build conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills. Faculty at Texas A&M University have contributed to these efforts, creating more than 200 online video resources and a broad bank of prior exams available to students. This work explores and measures the impact that these resources can have on student course outcomes in an introductory, calculus-based electricity and magnetism course. Data were collected from three fall semesters, 2021-2023, including classroom performance, a conceptual assessment, and relevant university level data to contextualize student background and pre-class abilities. Similar to prior studies, we found that relevant prior preparation in mathematics was the strongest predictor of student performance, with prior physics knowledge being a weaker but still statistically significant predictor. Students' utilization of supplemental old exams was the second highest predictor of student performance. First generation students were observed to have a slightly lower average performance on exams. However, interaction terms in the regression models indicated that first generation students using supplemental old exams were able to close this gap. Through anonymous surveys, students reported warm impressions of the materials, with over 80 per cent of students sharing that they had a noticeable contribution to their learning outside of the classroom and 98 per cent stating they would recommend them to their peers.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_12143
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Click, Watch, Learn: The Impact of Student Self-Study Materials on Physics E&M Course Outcomes
Hirons, James K.
Perry, Jonathan D.
Nodurft, Dawson T.
Crawford, Scott
Bassichis, William
Erukhimova, Tatiana L.
Physics Education
Performance in introductory courses, particularly physics, is often crucial for student success in STEM majors and can impact an individual's tendency to persist in their chosen field. To enhance students' individual learning experiences, faculty at many universities have worked to develop open-access, self-study materials to help build conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills. Faculty at Texas A&M University have contributed to these efforts, creating more than 200 online video resources and a broad bank of prior exams available to students. This work explores and measures the impact that these resources can have on student course outcomes in an introductory, calculus-based electricity and magnetism course. Data were collected from three fall semesters, 2021-2023, including classroom performance, a conceptual assessment, and relevant university level data to contextualize student background and pre-class abilities. Similar to prior studies, we found that relevant prior preparation in mathematics was the strongest predictor of student performance, with prior physics knowledge being a weaker but still statistically significant predictor. Students' utilization of supplemental old exams was the second highest predictor of student performance. First generation students were observed to have a slightly lower average performance on exams. However, interaction terms in the regression models indicated that first generation students using supplemental old exams were able to close this gap. Through anonymous surveys, students reported warm impressions of the materials, with over 80 per cent of students sharing that they had a noticeable contribution to their learning outside of the classroom and 98 per cent stating they would recommend them to their peers.
title Click, Watch, Learn: The Impact of Student Self-Study Materials on Physics E&M Course Outcomes
topic Physics Education
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.12143