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Reaching the Critical Mass: Highlights from the 2005 High School Physics Teachers Survey

by Michael Neuschatz, Mark McFarling, and Susan White

Enrollments
• Enrollments in high school physics continue to grow. In 2005, approximately one out of every three high school seniors had taken at least one physics course before graduating. Twenty years ago this figure was closer to one in five (Figure 1). In absolute terms, the number of students having taken physics during high school has almost doubled in fifteen years increasing from about 620,000 students in 1990 to 1.1 million in 2005 (Figure 2). Furthermore, the number of students taking an honors, AP, or second-year course has almost tripled growing from about 106,000 in 1990 to about 308,000 in 2005. Of course, some of the increase is likely attributable to helpful trends in population and college attendance, and furthered spurred by energetic and creative efforts to promote refinement and reform.

Demographics

• Among students, no longer is high school physics predominantly a preserve of white males. In terms of overall enrollment, female students have reached near parity (Figure 3). Among high school students, underrepresented minorities have made great strides, especially in the last dozen years, towards closing the historical gap in enrollment (Figure 4).
• The demographic profile of physics teachers has changed much more slowly. The proportion of female high school physics teachers is virtually unchanged from the previous survey with less than one-third of those teaching physics being women (Figure 5). African American and Hispanic teachers each make up only 1.5% of the total, and Asian Americans account for 2%.

Teacher Preparation / Specialization

• In 2005, there were about 23,000 teachers who taught at least one physics class. This was up from 17,900 in 1987. This increase of 28%, while not negligible, is far smaller than the growth in the number of students. The average class size has remained stable at 18 students; this coupled with the slower growth in the number of teachers has resulted in a 57% increase - from 28% in 1987 to 44% in 2005 - in the proportion of teachers who had all or most of their class assignments in physics (Figure 6). Additionally, over 70% of those teaching physics possess either a physics degree or extensive physics teaching experience, or both (Figure 7). Among those with no physics degree and little teaching experience, roughly two-thirds have degrees in one or more other science fields.

Physics First

• Over the last decade or so, there has been growing interest in the idea of restructuring the order of the science curriculum in U. S. high schools. Some educators have proposed that physics is the foundational science which provides the foundation for much of chemistry, which in turn forms the platform for much of what is new and exciting in biology. These scientists and educators have proposed to reorder the sequence in which high school science is taught, starting with physics first. The movement to promote the idea and encourage the implementation of Physics First (PF) has been slowly but steadily gaining ground over the last several years. We estimate that 4% of all U.S. high schools - 3% of all public and 8% of all private schools - had implemented some variant of Physics First by 2005. Figure 8 reveals that, overall, teachers' opinions regarding the efficacy of the Physics First approach are little changed from 2001; however, over 70% of those participating in a PF curriculum had positive opinions about it (Figure 9).

Funding

• Funding available per class for equipment and supplies has fallen from about $300 in 1987 to about $250 in 2005. After adjusting for inflation, physics teachers have less than half of the funds available to support the purchase of equipment and supplies than they did twenty years ago (Figure 10). In terms of starting salaries, the picture is slightly better with the growth in salaries outpacing inflation by about 0.8% per year (Figure 11).

Textbooks

• Finally, an examination of the percent of teachers using various textbooks reflects the ebb and flow that naturally occurs as publishers introduce and periodically revise their offerings. The top four texts account for over 85% of the teacher/school system adoptions in the regular first-year physics course. The choices for honors physics courses vary more widely (Table 1).

How the Survey Was Conducted
The 2004-05 Nationwide Survey of High School Physics Teachers is the sixth in a series of studies begun by the American Institute of Physics in the mid-1980s. In the fall of 2004, we contacted the principals at over 3,500 randomly-selected schools to obtain the name of all teachers with physics class assignments for that year and some basic information about the schools. We received names of over 3,700 teachers. In early 2005, we asked those teachers to tell us about themselves, their schools, their students, and their curricula. We combined their responses with those from the principals.