Dissertation
Writing in online undergraduate physics at the community college
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Summer 2023
DOI: 10.25820/etd.006870
Abstract
This paper is a proposal, project, and dissertation for Kenneth Johnson, Doctor of Philosophy degree in Science Education, in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa. I propose analyzing the writing assignment in an undergraduate online physics course offered by a small midwestern community college (CC). The goal is to study how Writing to Learn (WTL) exercises affect undergraduate physics students. How does their understanding of physics concepts improve? How does the writing toward a target audience improve over a semester? What are the student attitudes and impressions of online undergraduate physics science class writing exercises? The project will answer the first two questions in chapter two by studying the effects of WTL writing tasks on online undergraduate physics students at a two-year college (TYC). The investigator will address aspects of the third question in chapter three. In Chapter 4, the investigator will submit a detailed discussion of results, conclusion, limitations, potential actions in the learning environment, and future research potential. The investigation will take data from assignments, discussions, and surveys from an undergraduate online physics course in the spring of 2022. The writings in this study occurred before the public release in November of 2022 of ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence “chatbot” developed by OpenAI, a large language model.
Keywords: Writing, Readability, Attitude, WTL, Physics, Undergraduate, Community College, Two-Year College, TYC, Writing to Learn, Online, Reading-level, Science
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Writing in online undergraduate physics at the community college
- Creators
- Kenneth T. Johnson
- Contributors
- Brian Hand (Advisor)Kenneth Heitritter (Committee Member)Brandon LeBeau (Committee Member)Mark A McDermott (Committee Member)Jeffrey Nordine (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Teaching and Learning
- Date degree season
- Summer 2023
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.006870
- Number of pages
- xii, 137 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2023 Kenneth T. Johnson
- Language
- English
- Date submitted
- 07/18/2023
- Description illustrations
- illustrations
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references.
- Public Abstract (ETD)
This thesis is about how writing-to-learning (WTL) exercises in an online college physics aid students’ learning and understanding of physics concepts. The thesis covers two studies. The first study describes the effect of WTL on students’ understanding and abilities to write toward a younger audience and the different types of language they use in the writing, academic or everyday language. The Second student addresses the students' attitudes and perception of writing in aiding their learning in an online college physics course. The final chapter discusses the implications and limitations of these studies.
- Academic Unit
- Teaching and Learning
- Record Identifier
- 9984454319402771
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