Development and Use of a Conceptual Survey in Introductory Quantum Physics

Conceptual surveys have become increasingly popular at many levels to probe various aspects of science education research such as measuring student understanding of basic concepts and assessing the effectiveness of pedagogical material. The aim of this study was to construct a valid and reliable multiple‐choice conceptual survey to investigate students’ understanding of introductory quantum physics concepts. We examined course syllabi to establish content coverage, consulted with experts to extract fundamental content areas, and trialled open‐ended questions to determine how the selected content areas align with students’ difficulties. The questions were generated and trialled with different groups of students. Each version of the survey was critiqued by a group of discipline and teaching experts to establish its validity. The survey was administered to 312 students at the University of Sydney. Using the data from this sample, we performed five statistical tests (item difficulty index, item discrimination index, item point biserial coefficient, KR‐21 reliability test, and Ferguson’s delta) to evaluate the test’s reliability and discriminatory power. The result indicates that our survey is a reliable test. This study also provided data from which preliminary findings were drawn on students’ understandings of introductory quantum physics concepts. The main point is that questions which require an understanding of the standard interpretations of quantum physics are more challenging for students than those grouped as non‐interpretative. The division of conceptual questions into interpretive and non‐interpretive needs further exploration.     

Adult education,lifelong learning and citizenship: some ifs and buts

This paper suggests that the dominant discourse of lifelong learning is a political rather than an educational discourse. On this view, lifelong learning enables the deconstruction of welfare to be effected through the reconstruction of citizenship. Democratic citizenship properly understood, on the other hand, depends on determined progress towards a more equitable distribution of material and cultural resources among citizens. Education on its own can do little to ensure that such structural change takes place. It is, nevertheless, the task of critical adult education, as distinct from economistic models of lifelong learning, to raise such questions as urgent issues for democratic deliberation and debate, and to expand our notions of what it means to be active citizens in a democratic society. The paper contains the text of a talk given at the annual study conference of the UK's National Institute of Adult Continuing Education in April 2002.     

In their very own words: authors and scholarly journal publishing

This paper presents the results of a major investigation by questionnaire of author attitudes towards scholarly publishing, which was funded by the Publisher's Association. Altogether, the views of nearly 4,000 authors were obtained and this paper concerns just those thousand or so authors who accepted the invitation to write freely about their own personal feelings and experiences. Using QSR N6 textual analysis software, their comments were processed and themes extracted. While the rest of the questionnaire, which was formed of closed‐question, tick‐box type questions, clearly must have had some impact on their thinking, the authors had considerable latitude in regard to what they could say. The paper provides a unique opportunity to hear their views directly. The pressing topics turned out to be (in rough order of concern): the peer‐review system, copyright, journal prices, alternative business models for journal publishing, big deals, Elsevier, electronic publishing and digital journals.