PHYSICS PROBLEM SOLVING

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same lab and recitation cooperative group. The graduate teaching assistant was the same
for their lab and recitation. The only factor in determining the recitation/lab section in
which a given student was registered was his or her individual employment or class
schedule. That is, there was not a random assignment of students to a particular section.
The teaching assistants, however, assigned students to their cooperative groups within the
recitation/lab section. It was intended that there would be a heterogeneous mix within a
group in terms of the students’ performance in the class (high, medium, low). However,
the teaching assistants only occasionally followed this plan. Also, it was intended that
there would be all groups of three, and no groups where the number of men was greater
than the number of women. We found in previous research that heterogeneous
cooperative groups of three, with attention paid to the gender mix, worked best for
physics problem solving (Heller and Hollabaugh, 1992).
In reality, of the 14 groups in this study, there were 11 groups of three. Only four
of these three-member groups met the gender criteria, and of these four, only one (Group
3A), met the ability composition criteria. That is, the assignment to groups was not what
I would do in my own classes. However, I didn’t interfere with the teaching assistants,
although at their weekly meetings I made some suggestions about the group
compositions. Even so, I believe that these departures from the “desirable” may have
contributed to some interesting outcomes.
Students in a group worked a “practice” problem one week, and then worked a
problem for a grade the following week. Students were then reassigned to new groups
for another two-week period. During each of the two quarters, there were four graded
problems, offering eight data collection opportunities.