Prevalence and nature of computational instruction in undergraduate physics programs across the United States

A national survey of physics faculty was conducted to investigate the prevalence and nature of computational instruction in physics courses across the United States. 1246 faculty from 357 unique institutions responded to the survey. The results suggest that more faculty have some form of computational teaching experience than a decade ago, but it appears that this experience does not necessarily translate to computational instruction in undergraduate students’ formal course work. Further, we find that formal programs in computational physics are absent from most departments. A majority of faculty do report using computation on homework and in projects, but few report using computation with interactive engagement methods in the classroom or on exams. Specific factors that underlie these results are the subject of future work, but we do find that there is a variation on the reported experience with computation and the highest degree that students can earn at the surveyed institutions.

Figure 1

The number of institutions with a given number of respondents is shown. 40% (144) of institutions had one faculty member respond to the survey while the remaining institutions (213) had more than one respondent including some institutions with more than 10 respondents and one with 35 respondents.

Figure 2

Out of the 357 unique departments represented in the survey, 195 (55%) have a simple majority of their faculty reporting that they have some experience teaching computation to undergraduate physics students (blue bar). 263 (74%) departments have at least one faculty member reporting this experience (green bar).

Figure 3

Out of the 357 unique departments, 191 (54%) departments have at least one faculty member reporting that they teach computation in an introductory-level physics course (upper half; green bar). 85 (24%) have a simple majority of faculty reporting that they teach computation in an introductory-level physics course (upper half; blue bar). Similarly, 184 (52%) departments have at least one faculty member reporting that they teach computation in an advanced-level physics course (lower half; green bar). 100 (28%) have a simple majority of faculty reporting that they teach computation in an advanced-level physics course (lower half; blue bar).

Figure 4

For the 195 departments that have a simple majority of surveyed faculty reporting experience teaching computation in undergraduate physics, the percentage of departments with a simple majority of surveyed faculty using computational homework problems, computational projects, interactive computational activities, and computational exam problems are shown (blue bars). For the 263 departments with at least 1 faculty member reporting this teaching experience, the percentage of departments with at least 1 surveyed faculty member reporting the use of these course materials is also shown (green bars).

Figure 5

For the 195 departments that have a simple majority of surveyed faculty reporting experience teaching computation in undergraduate physics, programs with a simple majority of surveyed faculty reporting that they department offers bachelor’s degrees in computational physics or minors in computational physics are shown (blue bars). The percentage of departments with at least 1 surveyed faculty member reporting that their department offers these formal programs is also shown (green bars).

Figure 6

The percentage of departments with a simple majority of surveyed faculty at an institution reporting that they have experience teaching computation varies by the highest degree that students can earn in physics.