Why Poets Just Don't Get It in the Physics Classroom: Stalking the Second Tier in the Sciences

Abstract

Sheila Tobias, the Journal's featured speaker at the 1993 NACADA National Conference on Academic Advising, addresses here the topic of her keynote presentation in Detroit. In her investigations into student attrition in the sciences, Tobias has identified fundamental differences in the way students in the physical sciences are taught, and consequently expected to learn, and the way students in, say, the humanities or the social sciences are. Here she sketches the broad outlines of her findings and the evidence upon which they rest, with provocative implications and possibilities for academic advisors.