Equitable approach to introductory calculus-based physics courses focused on problem solving*

A major challenge with calculus-based physics 1 is the large spread in the students' incoming physics preparation. This level of preparation is strongly predictive of a students' performance and because the level of students' incoming preparation is largely determined by the quality of their high school physics courses, Physics 1 can amplify K–12 educational inequities. Here, we present a novel introductory course design to address this equity challenge. The design and implementation are based on the concept of deliberate practice as applied to learning real-world problem solving. The problems used in the course and their solutions have little resemblance to what students encounter in high school physics, thereby reducing the dependence of course performance on high school physics preparation.The students who took the course learned the physics content knowledge they needed for future courses, particularly in engineering, and their problem-solving skills improved substantially. Furthermore, their course performance had much less correlation with their incoming physics preparation than was the case for the outcomes from the traditional Physics 1 courses at both institutions: in one case the correlation dropped from r=0.62 to 0.14, and on the other case the correlation dropped from r=0.56 to 0.26. These findings suggest this course design can be a more equitable version of the traditional Physics 1 course, and hence particularly beneficial for marginalized students.