Physics Education in the Two-Year Colleges: A Neglected Resource

Two-year colleges have the potential to provide education programs which will produce a technically sophisticated workforce able to respond to the changing needs of the U.S. economy. In addition, there have been calls to reform and update the science and technology programs at these institutions. Yet, surprisingly little is known about existing programs or the faculty who lead them. In order to assess the success of the reforms that are being proposed, it is essential to have an understanding of current conditions in these programs. There are several reasons to examine physics in detail at the two-year college level: 1) The existence of detailed information about physics education at both the high school and four-year college level will allow physics education at the two-year college level to be placed in a broader context; 2) Physics courses are among the core requirements for most technology-based programs at two-year colleges, and thus help define the overall quality of these programs; and 3) Since physics is relatively well-defined as a discipline and its two-year college faculty small in number, the study will serve as a model that can be applied to other disciplines. The primary vehicle for studying physics education at two-year colleges will be a survey of all full-time and part-time faculty who teach physics. A two-stage approach will be employed to define this population. Academic deans and directors of vocational programming at each two-year college will be asked to identify relevant department chairs, who will then be asked to indicate all fu ll- and part-time faculty who teach physics. The project design anticipates a high response rate from both groups. All faculty identified by the chairs will receive a detailed questionnaire seeking information about their workloads, education and employment backgrounds, the facilities and resources available to them, opportunities for professional development, teaching methods and instructional materials used, the nature of articulation agreements with nearby high schools and four-year colleges, and other key indicators of their work environment. In addition to the survey, face-to-face interviews with chairs and faculty (both full- and part-time) will be conducted at twelve two-year colleges, chosen to reflect the variation in institutional size and control, academic orientation, and geographic region. The interviews will provide an opportunity to probe issues which are not easily captured in a self-administered format. In addition, 6 to 8 students at each institution will participate in a student focus group. The students' perspectives on the quality and difficulty of their physics courses, their interactions with the physics faculty, their reasons for taking physics, and their educational goals will enhance the information gained through the faculty survey and interviews. The results of this research will be coordinated with other higher education studies and disseminated to representatives of local industries, department chairs and faculty at two-year colleges, high schools, and four-year colleges, and other professional organizations active at the two-year college level. The investigators will actively collaborate with two-year college groups to provide relevant and timely information to current and proposed regional two-year college development programs.