Active methods in electricity and magnetism courses: Influence of degree, academic level and gender on student performance

María-Antonia Serrano; Ana Vidaurre; José M Meseguer-Dueñas; Isabel Tort-Ausina; Susana Quiles; Roser Sabater I Serra; Tania García-Sanchez; Soledad Bernal-Pérez; M Amparo Gámiz-González; José Molina-Mateo; José Antonio Gómez-Tejedor; Jaime Riera

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20490

Active methods in electricity and magnetism courses: Influence of degree, academic level and gender on student performance

Heliyon. 2023 Sep 28;9(10):e20490. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20490. eCollection 2023 Oct.

Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, Valencia, 46021, Spain.
² Electrical Engineering Department, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, Valencia, 46021, Spain.
³ Departamento de Educación, Universidad Internacional de Valencia, C/ Pintor Sorolla, 21, 46002, Valencia, Spain.

Abstract

The performance of first-year students in electromagnetism (E&M) courses of different engineering degrees at a Spanish public university was measured using the Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA), a standard research-based instrument to assess students' understanding after attending introductory courses in electricity and magnetism. In all cases, Flipped classroom (FC) built on information and communications technology was used. The objective of this paper is to analyse if the gain in the BEMA pre and post-test results is influenced by several factors such as the degree, the students' academic grade, and gender. Moreover, as some studies have shown that the students' retention of the concepts was significantly stronger in active learning than in traditional approaches, a third BEMA test was performed by the students to analyse the long-term retention gain dependence on the same factors. Students from different engineering degree programs were asked to complete two BEMA tests during the course and a third one after a few months. ANOVA tests were used to analyse the existence of significant differences in gain between student degree programs, student academic level and student gender. Results have shown no differences in the BEMA performance by degree program, but significant differences were found by academic level and gender. Retention did not depend on the degree course but on the academic level. Mean gain value by academic level, and gender was obtained and concluded that the best students presented the best gain results and that gain depends on the students' gender: males outperformed females in the BEMA tests, although there were no significant differences in the course grades. It is thus necessary to understand these differences and to implement measures in daily teaching work to improve women's performance.

Keywords: And Mathematics (STEM) disciplines; Brief electricity and magnetism assessment (BEMA); Concept inventory; Engineering; First-year undergraduate students; Gender differences; Physics; Retention; Science; Student perception; Technology.