Related papers: Do GRE scores help predict getting a physics Ph.D.…
Recent and influential critiques of standardized testing have noted the existence of non-trivial numbers of successful scientists who received low scores on the GRE. Here we use computer simulations to show that the prevalence of such…
Previous research has suggested that changing the percentage of the course grade associated with exam grades in STEM courses can change the gender gap in the course. It has also been shown that assessments with the highest stakes have the…
We present two programs that address needs to better prepare graduate students for their roles as professional physicists, particularly in the areas of teaching and education research. The two programs, Preparing Future Physicists (PFP) and…
Research shows that expert-like approaches to problem-solving can be promoted by encouraging students to explicate their thought processes and follow a prescribed problem-solving strategy. Since grading communicates instructors'…
An important goal of graduate physics core courses is to help students develop expertise in problem solving and improve their reasoning and meta-cognitive skills. We explore the conceptual difficulties of physics graduate students by…
These lectures introduce key concepts in probability and statistical inference at a level suitable for graduate students in particle physics. Our goal is to paint as vivid a picture as possible of the concepts covered.
Fractional scoring has been proposed to avoid inconsistencies in the attribution of publications to percentile rank classes. Uncertainties and ambiguities in the evaluation of percentile ranks can be demonstrated most easily with small…
Many scholars have called for raising statistical hurdles to guard against false discoveries in academic publications. I show these calls may be difficult to justify empirically. Published data exhibit bias: results that fail to meet…
We report the results of statistical analysis performed on course grades for calculus-based introductory physics for data collected over a four-year period. We consider two important categories of scores: proctored (in-class proctored exams…
We use four years of introductory astronomy scores to analyze the ability of the current population to perform college level work and measure the amount of grade inflation across various majors. Using an objective grading scale, one that is…
This research uses 10 years of institutional data at a large public university in the USA to investigate trends in the undergraduate majors students declare, drop, and earn degrees, especially comparing physics to other disciplines. We find…
We analyze 5 years of student records at the University of Oregon to estimate the probability of success (as defined by superior undergraduate record; sufficient for admission to graduate school) in Physics and Mathematics as a function of…
Physics education research (PER) is a rapidly growing area of PhD specialization. In this article we examine the trajectories that led respondents into a PER graduate program as well as their expected future trajectories. Data were…
Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) often perform better for high-degree nodes than low-degree nodes on node classification tasks. This degree bias can reinforce social marginalization by, e.g., privileging celebrities and other high-degree actors…
Teaching assistants (TAs) are often responsible for grading student solutions. Since grading communicates instructors' expectations, TAs' grading decisions play a crucial role in forming students' approaches to problem solving (PS) in…
Voltage prediction in distribution grids is a critical yet difficult task for maintaining power system stability. Machine learning approaches, particularly Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), offer significant speedups but suffer from poor…
Many forecasts consist not of point predictions but concern the evolution of quantities. For example, a central bank might predict the interest rates during the next quarter, an epidemiologist might predict trajectories of infection rates,…
Currently, college-going students are taking longer to graduate than their parental generations. Further, in the United States, the six-year graduation rate has been 59% for decades. Improving the educational quality by training…
In previous work we analyzed databases for 95 classes to show that the percent grade scale was correlated with a much higher student fail rate than the 4.0 grade scale. This paper builds on this work and investigates equity gaps occurring…
Learning to think like a physicist (LTP) is often cited as a central goal of graduate physics education, yet what this means in practice and the extent to which physics graduate education prepares students to develop LTP and view LTP as…