Attitudes Toward Problem Solving as Predictors of Student Success

The survey of attitudes towards, and views of, problem solving that is presented here is still under development. It is part of a larger project to develop an assessment of student problem solving ability in introductory physics. The survey is intended for use in a manner similar to the Maryland Physics Expectation Survey (MPEX). That is, it is given to students pre‐ and post‐instruction. Student responses are evaluated in comparison to the answers given by “experts”. Post‐instruction movement of student responses toward those given by the “experts” is considered to be improvement. This paper presents the survey questions, expert responses and discusses responses of several hundred students at three different institutions. Correlations between student survey results and grades, conceptual survey scores and instructor evaluation of student problem solving ability are presented. The goal is to begin to probe whether student attitudes toward problem solving are correlated to success on other metrics.