Educational policy

July 10, 2019 Nick Young

Gender and racial biases still a problem in physics post-doctoral hiring

Even when the CVs are otherwise identical, physics faculty preferred applicants from majority groups as opposed to candidates from minority groups.

May 22, 2019 Nick Young

The chicken and the egg problem of academic productivity

Faculty at more prestigious universities tend to publish more. However, faculty at prestigious universities tend to be trained at prestigious universities. So it is the training or their current position that causes their productivity bump?

April 10, 2019 Nick Young

Will I get worse student evaluations if I switch to active learning? Probably not.

Many instructors fear that switching from lecture to active learning will result in worse student evaluations. That doesn’t appear to be the case.

January 16, 2019 Nick Young

Who feels more capable of doing physics: women with “A”s or men with “C”s? The answer probably won’t surprise you.

Yep, women who perform the same as men perform don’t feel they are as capable of doing physics.

December 5, 2018 Nick Young

The GRE: what is it good for?

The GRE: great at acting as a barrier to underrepresented groups, not so good as a predictor of completing graduate school.

September 26, 2018 Nick Young

What matters when applying to graduate school and how it impacts diversity

Physics is less diverse than other physical sciences. Do graduate school admission processes contribute to this?

September 12, 2018 Nick Young

Extra! Extra! Physics labs seem to be extra.

Labs have been a standard part of the physics curriculum. Today’s paper suggests that labs don’t help students develop physics knowledge beyond what is already covered in other parts of the course.

August 1, 2018 Nick Young

The lack of a relation between student learning and student evaluations

Student evaluations of instruction are widely used to evaluate instructors. Today’s article suggests these are not correlated with student learning.

July 5, 2018 Nick Young

Who wants to be physics teacher?

What are the demographics of future physics teachers & are any of those characteristics associated with their performance on certification exams?

June 20, 2018 Nick Young

The Price of Active Learning

Active learning methods are thought to be more costly to implement than traditional lectures. Is this common belief actually the case and if so, what does that mean for their implementation?