Transcript National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Studies, Summary of Workshop on Graduate Student Attrition, NSF 99-314, Project Officer, Alan I.

National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Studies,
Summary of Workshop on Graduate Student Attrition, NSF 99-314, Project
Officer, Alan I. Rapoport (Arlington, VA 1998).
This 1998 report said the following about AIP’s assessment of
PhD attrition up to that time:
• This ongoing study employs a "roster approach," gathering data on
enrollments in graduate physics programs along with degrees awarded.
• Although AIP has collected names of graduate students in physics
departments for the last 20 years or more, it has only recently begun to collect
names of Ph.D. recipients. It will be a few more years, therefore, before it will be
possible to determine more precisely the numbers of those who are
unsuccessful in obtaining the degree. The findings of the study so far provide
"very rough aggregate numbers," according to the presenter.
• Looking at 10 years of data on entering U.S. students, a fairly steady numberranging from 15 to 20 percent-come out with a master's degree two years after
enrollment.
• About 45 percent of those entering with the aim of getting a Ph.D. actually
come out with the doctorate six years later
http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/Doceducation.pdf
At the request of the AAPT/APS Task Force on Graduate Education
AIP’s Statistical Research Center prepared a questionnaire and
obtained information from 137 (out of 186) PhD granting departments
enrolling 76% of all doctoral students in physics.
These responses are collected and summarized in “Core and
Breadth in Physics Doctoral Education.” The report of the Task
Force on Graduate Education is based largely on this AIP report.
There are items of interest in the AIP SRC report that are not
found in the TFGE report. I recommend that you read the AIP
report. You can download the report from
http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/Doceducation.pdf
30
25
20
15
10
5
80
60
40
20
0
0
Number of Schools
Physics PhD Attrition
% students completing PhD
What Does the
Undergraduate Physics
Curriculum Need to Do?
• To have credibility among professional physicists
and for its own self respect, a physics department
must be able to prepare students to succeed in
physics graduate school.
• Every physics department has a general
education mission, particularly appropriate in a
liberal arts college, to teach as many students as
possible about the physical world and
quantitative science.
The undergraduate physics major
should be the liberal arts
education of the twenty-first
century
The purpose of teaching physics should not be merely to clone
ourselves and keep a few poor souls out of medical school. A solid
education in physics is the best conceivable preparation for the
lifetime of rapid technological change that our young people face.
The undergraduate physics major should be the liberal arts
education of the twenty-first century! Every physics department in
the country ought to inscribe that motto on its walls and march under
that banner. But to make that motto into a reality would take nothing
less than a revolution in the way we do our jobs.
http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200006/back-page.cfm
Objectively assessable measures of
the efficacy of an undergraduate
physics curriculum
For example:
• is a capable student at the end of her or his junior
year able to score at least in the 25th percentile of
the physics GREs;
• are students completing a year of physics able to
read with comprehension a significant portion of the
commentary paragraphs in Nature
The profession of teaching physics at the college level in America today has
only two purposes. One is to produce physicists, and the other is to act as a
gatekeeper, keeping the unworthy out of certain other professions such as
medicine and engineering. We will always need physicists, but not very
many of them. And, indeed, the number of physics majors in colleges all
across the country today is said to be at its lowest point since Sputnik, more
than forty years ago. Our other role, as gatekeeper, is the dark side of our
profession, and it is, frankly, unworthy of us. The simple fact is, if teaching
physics were a business, we would be filing for bankruptcy.