EUROPEAN PHYSICS EDUCATION - A COMPARATIVE STUDY BY EUPEN. PART I: UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES

Introduction

The European Physics Education Network (EUPEN), its structure, activities and aims have been presented to you by the previous speakers. As you heard, EUPEN was established in 1996, and its main activities consist of a comparative study on the Physics Higher Education in Europe, identifying the goals of physics teaching in the future and establishing criteria to assess and promote quality in physics teaching.

This study is based on a Questionnaire distributed in 1997 to all EUPEN members. The collected returns, 76 replies from 22 countries (Fig. 1), corresponding to about 70% of all members, were thoroughly analysed and published in the EUPEN Proceedings volumes.

Some data were incomplete and inconsistent. From some countries we had very few responses. The result reflects naturally EUPEN membership.

This oral presentation refers to the Undergraduate studies, whereas the Doctoral Studies were presented in the preceding talk, and it is the product of the work of the following 5 colleagues, members of the 3^rd Working Group of EUPEN. As you can see the group is quite international: Ireland, Greece, France, Portugal and Poland.

The contents of this presentation are the following:

Entry age and entry requirements

Female participation

Qualification length and title

Students workload

Curricula structure

Progression and dropout rates

Financial aspects

Students accommodation

Conclusions

1. Entry requirements

A choice exists between open entry (i.e. a system where all graduates from high school are entitled to enter University) and some systems of competitive entry based on state examinations, examination operated by the University, and/or other systems. The first system applies in Norway, Denmark, France, Italy, Austria, and Belgium. Where the second system exists, the usual success rate is rather high, as in Spain and Central Europe countries, where the success rate is higher than 50%. In Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom it is between 20 and 50%, and only in Ireland and Greece it seems to be lower than 20%. The fact that the mean success rate is high, probably indicates a lack of demand for physics degrees rather than the high quality of the applicants.

2. Entry age

The Age of entry varies from country to country, as you can see in the next picture, due the length of secondary schooling and the requirement of military service in some countries. Its lower and upper limits are 17.5 (in Ireland) and 20 (in a few Scandinavian countries), with a maximum of the distribution (next Fig.) and a mean age of about 19 years.

3. Female Participation

There are surprising differences in the take-up of physics courses by female students across Europe. The number of female students is low (percentage between 10 and 20%) in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, but higher (30-40%) in Iberia, Italy and countries of Central Europe. In some countries, however, the figures may be misleading; for example the 29% figure for Hungary is a combination of 10% for the Physics degree and 65% for the Physics teaching degree. The mean percentage of female students in Europe is about 24%. Clearly Physics is not proving to be an attractive option for the majority of female potential students.

4. Qualification length and title

There are wide variations in the structure of university studies across Europe and a confusing list of titles and qualifications. In this figure, the first physics degree was taken to be a 4 or 5 year course. However the real time taken can be considerably longer, especially in the case of Italy, where the average completion time is 70% longer that the official period. We can see (next Fig.) that the official length is centred between 4 and 5 years, with a mean value of 4.4, whereas the actual one is much broader, it is centered between 5 and 6 years and has a mean value of 5.3 years.

5. Language of instruction

At the early stages of a Physics course, teaching is only provided in the language (or languages) of the country. At a higher level, courses are available in English, but the availability is at best patchy, except in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and naturally the United Kingdom and Ireland.

6. Progression, overrun and dropout rates

This is a difficult subject to analyse because of the very different educational systems in various countries. The figures for completion “on time” and after an “extra” 1 or 2 or more years probably provide the best guide to progression problems. The completing “on time” percentage varies from 97% in Slovakia to 3% in Italy. The mean values over the 33 countries are as follows: 49% “on time”, 27% “plus one year”, 16% “plus two years”, and 8% “plus more than two years”.

On the other hand, the main percentage of physics students not completing their studies amounts to about 30%.

7. Students accommodation

The following picture gives an idea of the students accommodation distribution. As expected, the larger percentage of students lives in the family home, a somewhat smaller percentage stays in students residences, where available, and the rest in private apartments, rooms and hostels.

8. Teaching and living cost per student

Student funding and fee regimes vary drastically, providing barriers to foreign students. The figures are expressed both in Euro and as a % of the GDP (Gross Domestic product) per capita. In most countries the cost of educating a student is about 30% of GDP/capita, but tends to be larger in countries with lower incomes. Clearly these figures cannot be relied upon too strongly due to the wide variations in definitions and the difficulty of using GDP/capita as the sole measure of relative costs.

As it can be deduced from the graphs, the average cost for educating a student is about 30% of GDP/capita; on the same basis, the average cost of living for students at home is 18% and away from home 30%.

9. Conclusions

Despite the small size of our sample (20% to 25% of the total number of Physics Departments in the investigated countries) and the difficulties in analysing the responses, this presentation provides a general overview of how Physics studies are structured and organised in Europe.

Some trends are clear, the length of courses, the general structure of curricula, the difficulties in student exchange, due to language, financial, and in several cases, recognition problems, the low level of female participation and the large dropout in some cases.

It is our hope that each institution, by comparing its approach with the average trends described very briefly here and in a more detailed way in the Proceedings of EUPEN Fora may improve it, without losing the values of its traditional identity, following the teachings of the Sorbonne and Bologna Declarations.