The goal of this project is to build a bridge between those professionals who provide physics instruction and researchers who develop assessment tools for physics. This is being accomplished by providing tools (online assessment resources and synthesis research) to arm faculty to do better assessment and professional development (a workshop and online support for physics department chairs) to teach chairs, as agents of change, how to use those tools.
This work will have three major outcomes: 1. Department chairs will learn to assess learning in their departments in a way that is consistent with their goals and language and connected to results in PER, thus meeting their need for assessment tools and transforming the way assessment is done in physics departments throughout the country. 2. Physics education researchers will increase their understanding of the assessment needs related to program review, resulting in improved tools to meet these needs and potential new areas of research. 3. Assessment will become a comfortable tool that will lead to increased adoption of evidence-based teaching. By arming chairs with good assessment practices tied to their needs and goals, this project will give them the tools to engage their departments in a systematic process of examination and improvement of teaching and student learning. The project will facilitate the connection between assessment and evidence-based teaching by connecting online assessment resources to existing resources for PER-based teaching methods in the PER User's Guide (http://perusersguide.org).
This project will achieve these outcomes by: -- Developing online assessment resources including (1) a guide to the research behind and the use of many different types of formative and summative assessments, (2) a comprehensive collection of overviews of PER-based assessment instruments, and (3) a database system to collect and analyze results of research-based assessments. -- Surveying chairs to identify the questions about assessment that are most important to them. -- Developing an in-person workshop and online follow-up for department chairs on incorporating PER-based assessments. -- Developing online modules and guides to address the questions identified by the survey. -- Conducting synthesis research to analyze data collected through the new assessment results database and the existing rapid analysis and web reports (RAWR) system.
This project has the potential to transform how both assessment and teaching are done throughout the country by increasing the use of decades of physics education research. The impact will be maximized by targeting physics department chairs, who are already deeply motivated to do assessment for departmental and accreditation purposes, and are in positions of authority and able to affect departmental change. Assessment will start the transformation in an area where chairs are already eager for new tools and will lead naturally towards evidence-based teaching.
