Related papers: An Analysis of Physics Graduate Admission Data
The Physics GRE is currently a required element of the graduate admissions process in nearly all U.S. astronomy programs; however, its predictive power and utility as a means of selecting "successful" applicants has never been examined. We…
One argument for keeping the physics GRE is that it can help applicants who might otherwise be missed in the admissions process stand out. In this work, we evaluate whether this claim is supported by physics graduate school admissions…
This work aims to understand how effective the typical admissions criteria used in physics are at identifying students who will complete the PhD. Through a multivariate statistical analysis of a sample that includes roughly one in eight…
Among all of the first-year graduate students enrolled in doctoral-granting physics departments, the percentage of female and racial minority students has remained unchanged for the past 20 years. The current graduate program admissions…
Despite limiting access to applicants from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, the practice of using hard or soft GRE cut-off scores in physics graduate program admissions is still a popular method for reducing the pool of…
An analysis of 1,955 physics graduate students from 19 PhD programs shows that undergraduate grade point average predicts graduate grades and PhD completion more effectively than GRE scores. Students' undergraduate GPA (UGPA) and GRE…
Physics Education Research frequently investigates what students studying physics do on small time scales (e.g. single courses, observations within single courses), or post-education time scales (e.g., what jobs do physics majors get?) but…
We discuss and analyze the fact that physics is generally losing its ability to captivate students who may possess the potential to enhance the quality of our future in this age of technology. We have tried to investigate the reasons behind…
Is physics education research based on a representative sample of students? To answer this question we skimmed physics education research papers from three journals for the years 1970 - 2015 looking for the number of research subjects, the…
As systematic inequities in higher education and society have been brought to the forefront, graduate programs are interested in increasing the diversity of their applicants and enrollees. Yet, structures in place to evaluate applicants may…
At the beginning of academic year 2007-08, staff in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Glasgow started to implement a number of substantial changes to the administration of the level 1 physics undergraduate class.…
We analyze the current trends in higher education and discuss its impact on physics enrollment in US institutions. The pandemic, lockdowns, unemployment, and healthcare problems have led to unique social and economic conditions. These…
A recent paper in Sci. Adv. by Miller et al. concludes that GREs do not help predict whether physics grad students will get Ph.D.s. The paper makes numerous elementary statistics errors, including introduction of unnecessary collider-like…
Between 1984 and 2011, the percentage of US bachelor degrees awarded in physics declined by 25%, in chemistry declined by 33%, and overall in physical sciences and engineering fell 40%. Data suggest that these declines are correlated to a…
Studying for physics exams can be difficult and stressful, especially during a student's introductory year in physics. For students who do not plan to major in physics, the desire to do well is based less on understanding concepts and more…
Studies examining gender differences in introductory physics show a consensus when it comes to a gender gap on conceptual assessments; however, the story is not as clear when it comes to differences in gendered performance on exams. This…
We introduce and theoretically justify a new measure of the self-recognition component of student physics identity called Self-Evaluated Expertise (SEE). This measure is constructed such that it can be extracted from existing responses to…
Several years ago I reported a survey (Hake 1998a,b,c) of pre/post test data for 62 introductory physics courses enrolling a total of 6542 students. The present article provides a summary of that survey and presents fourteen lessons from…
Gaining recognition as a physics person by peers is an important contributor to undergraduate students' physics identity and their success in physics courses. Previous research has separately demonstrated that women perceive less…
For the last four years, the School of Physics at Georgia Tech have been preparing new Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) through a program that integrates pedagogy, physics content, and professional development strategies. Here we discuss…