TY - JOUR

T1 - Sentiment and thematic analysis of faculty responses

T2 - Transition to online learning

AU - Green, Colin

AU - Brewe, Eric

AU - Mellen, Jillian

AU - Traxler, Adrienne

AU - Scanlin, Sarah

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation Awards No. DUE 2027958 and No. DUE 2027963. We appreciate the methodological help from Tor Ole Bigton Odden on Latent Dirichlet Allocation. We also greatly appreciate the time all survey respondents spent, particularly during a pandemic. Publisher Copyright: © 2024 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - This project aims to understand physics faculty responses to transitioning to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. We surveyed 662 physics faculty from the United States following the Spring 2020 term; of these, 258 completed a follow-up survey after the Fall 2020 term. We used natural language processing to measure the sentiment scores of 364 Spring 2020 responses and another 134 Fall 2020 responses of physics faculty who completed an optional written prompt. Additionally, we determined the change in sentiment scores of the 100 individuals who responded to both surveys. These sentiment scores measured between -1 and 1 for completely negative and completely positive, respectively. Sentiment scores after Spring 2020 were slightly positive with a median value of 0.2347. The distribution of sentiment changes was approximately normally distributed with a mean centered near zero. Analysis suggests the average sentiment did not change from the initial to follow-up surveys. To identify major topics within the responses for both surveys, latent Dirichlet allocation analysis was applied to the data. The topic distribution for the initial survey is given as course modifications and technology, negative aspects of the transition - primarily with labs and cheating, exam and evaluation difficulties, and difficulties with student understanding. The topics were noticeably different in the follow-up survey with differences between Fall and Spring, cooperative learning strategies, strategies that worked in the remote space, and benefits of in-person labs.

AB - This project aims to understand physics faculty responses to transitioning to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. We surveyed 662 physics faculty from the United States following the Spring 2020 term; of these, 258 completed a follow-up survey after the Fall 2020 term. We used natural language processing to measure the sentiment scores of 364 Spring 2020 responses and another 134 Fall 2020 responses of physics faculty who completed an optional written prompt. Additionally, we determined the change in sentiment scores of the 100 individuals who responded to both surveys. These sentiment scores measured between -1 and 1 for completely negative and completely positive, respectively. Sentiment scores after Spring 2020 were slightly positive with a median value of 0.2347. The distribution of sentiment changes was approximately normally distributed with a mean centered near zero. Analysis suggests the average sentiment did not change from the initial to follow-up surveys. To identify major topics within the responses for both surveys, latent Dirichlet allocation analysis was applied to the data. The topic distribution for the initial survey is given as course modifications and technology, negative aspects of the transition - primarily with labs and cheating, exam and evaluation difficulties, and difficulties with student understanding. The topics were noticeably different in the follow-up survey with differences between Fall and Spring, cooperative learning strategies, strategies that worked in the remote space, and benefits of in-person labs.

U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.20.010151

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.20.010151

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85196175479

VL - 20

JO - Physical Review Physics Education Research

JF - Physical Review Physics Education Research

SN - 2469-9896

IS - 1

M1 - 010151

ER -