The Effectiveness of Hobby Oriented Physics Experiences (h.o.p.e.) in The Teaching of High School Physics

191 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1980.In the last century, scientific technology has played a major part in altering the way of life for persons in the United States. The need for more persons with a knowledge of this technology is growing rapidly. The job of training these persons rests mainly with the colleges and universities across the country.In many areas of science and mathematics, the number of college students electing to major in their chosen branch of science has been increasing. But such is not the case with physics. Physics is considered the foundation of all of the physical sciences, yet the percent of students majoring in physics has been declining.The first exposure to organized physics for most students comes in their senior year of high school. The quality of this exposure, and whether it even occurs, has a great effect on the number of students that go on to major in physics. This presents an increasingly important problem to a technologically oriented society.This thesis wishes to examine this problem and to trace historically what has been done to improve high school physics and thereby increase the numbers of students who choose to enroll in physics courses. PSSC,HPP,ISPP and other nationally funded programs will be examined, along with many that were successful on a local level. From these programs, the author has gleaned the ideas and techniques that seem to produce more and better physics students. These ideas are then put together in a new format to form H.O.P.E., which stands for Hobby Oriented Physics Experiences.The results of H.O.P.E. when used by a pilot group of physics teachers will be presented through interviews with the teachers and their students. Evaluations of those teachers by their students will also be included.The concept of H.O.P.E. involves coupling the high motivation present with hobbies to the concepts of physics that the teacher wishes to present. Recommendations for introducing this concept into an existing class are included, along with suggestions for creating Physics Individualized Experiences (P.I.E.), which aid in the transition from teacher oriented to student oriented learning.Examples of students created P.I.E. are included in the appendix along with a reference list for each of four popular hobbies: astronomy, photography, model railroading and model rocketry.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD