Positive impacts of modeling instruction on self-efficacy

Abstract

Analysis of the impact of Modeling Instruction (MI) on the sources of self-efficacy for students in Introductory Physics 1 will be presented. We measured self-efficacy through a quantitative diagnostic (SOSESC) developed by Fencl and Scheel [1] to investigate the impact of instruction on the sources of self-efficacy in all introductory physics classes. We collected both pre- semester data and post-semester data, and evaluated the effect of the classroom by analyzing the shift (Post-Pre). At Florida International University, a Hispanic-serving institution, we find that traditional lecture classrooms negatively impact the self-efficacy of all students, while the MI courses had no impact for all students. Further, when disaggregating the data by gender and sources of self-efficacy, we find that Modeling Instruction positively impacted the Verbal Persuasion source of self-efficacy for women. This positive impact helps to explain high rates of retention for women in the MI classes. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.