THE IMPACT OF DISCIPLINARY FUTURE SELF ENRICHED ELECTROMAGNETISM COURSE ON PHARMACY MAJORS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND AFFECT IN PHYSICS

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High drop-out rates at university level indicate that students are not able to find what they expected at the university. It is a problem in many European countries. Reports from European Commission and universities, mentioned that relating the courses in their programs to e.g. the disciplinary future selves (DFSs) of the students is one of the solutions by enhancing students’ learning and affective states (e.g. motivation and interest). The DFS is defined as a future identity that one wants to establish by choosing a certain study program. Introductory physics courses in many undergraduate programs such as pharmaceutical sciences, are among the courses perceived as difficult and sometimes irrelevant. There were few attempts to relate physics courses to pharmacy majors. However, there was no study to reveal the effects of these attempts. Though there were attempts to relate introductory physics courses to life-science students which concluded that it is possible to influence participation in a course and students’ perceptions about the link between physics and biology. In order to explore the effects of the DFS-related physics instruction on pharmacy students’ achievement in physics and affective characteristics related to physics, a quasi-experimental research with control group will be conducted. The focus of the physics course is on Electromagnetism. Activities and materials related to electricity content will be developed to design the DFS-related instruction by reviewing the literature thoroughly, and conducting interviews with the course instructors, teaching assistants, pharmacy majors, and pharmaceutical sciences faculty members. The effectiveness of the instruction will be assessed with physics achievement test and the Affective Characteristics Questionnaire (both as pre-test & post-test). During the implementation, experimental and control groups will be observed. After the implementation, post-interviews will be conducted to validate the results.