The world is always in a state of flux – and no more so than now. Triggered in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s clear that new technologies, such as telemedicine, digital payments and industrial automation, are moving faster than ever. We also need to find ways to decarbonize the economy, deal with an ageing population and harness the power of artificial intelligence.
In the light of these challenges, it’s vital that universities give students the right knowledge and skills so they can create and develop the next generation of technological solutions to tomorrow’s problems. With their unique combination of high-level scientific knowledge, numeracy and problem-solving skills, physicists are well placed to meet these needs in a wide range of high-tech industries.
However, physicists often fall short on broader translational skills, such as effective communication, team working, creativity and the ability to find cross-disciplinary solutions to complex problems. Furthermore, traditional physics degrees often overlook the fact that many physicists do not end up in academic or physics-specific roles. Instead, they move into areas such as manufacturing, energy, finance and teaching, where they have to apply their knowledge in ways they have not been taught.
Ensuring enough physics graduates have the right mix of skills is a huge challenge for educators. It’s pleasing therefore that the Institute of Physics (IOP) revised its degree accreditation framework in 2022 to encourage universities to design more flexible physics degrees. Departments that want IOP accreditation now need to make translational skills more prominent, while placing an equal emphasis on knowledge and skills.The new framework should ensure that physics graduates are better prepared for the world of work. It will give them “skills clusters” – combinations of translational and technical skills that are valued by graduate employers and can be used in many different careers. It will also encourage universities to teach and assess in innovative ways. Physicists heading into financial technology, cybersecurity or IT, for example, will need data-science and machine-learning skills alongside their core physics expertise.
We are also seeing the emergence of entirely new educational models that are challenging the traditional degree structure. Stanford University’s thought experiment Stanford2025, as well as UA92 in Manchester and 01 Founders in London, are all designed to attract students from more diverse backgrounds, and align more closely to employers’ needs. Rather than just being about what students learn, their focus is increasingly on how the students are taught and assessed.
But what would a physics degree look like if we were to start a new university or a new course entirely from scratch? How could we redesign physics courses to more closely match the skills that physics students and employers need? And what lessons can we learn from the way in which degrees were forced to adapt during the pandemic? Which changes were effective, and which were not?
Those were some of the issues that graduate recruiters and university physicists discussed during a series of IOP-supported webinars that took place in 2021. Organized by the UK’s South East Physics Network (SEPnet) and the White Rose Industrial Physics Academy (WRIPA), the webinars raised some fascinating issues that we summarize here. As the COVID-19 pandemic fades into the background, here are five important questions we need to ask ourselves if we are to create the physics degree of the future.
1. How do we teach students to tackle open-ended, unfamiliar problems?
Employers want graduates who can solve problems that are not necessarily well-posed or lie in a specific scientific area. However, those who recruit physicists often comment that candidates struggle with open-ended questions. This shortcoming may be due to the traditional “modular” nature of physics degrees, where each assessment only tests students on what they know about one particular topic.
Take optics, for example. Students are often taught and assessed in terms of topics such as diffraction and interferometry, which means they only know how to solve questions framed in certain ways. It’s a method of teaching that reinforces “siloed thinking”, with students not realizing – or knowing – that optics is also hugely relevant to areas such as robotics, advanced driver-assistance systems and healthcare.
An alternative approach would be for students to be introduced to a number of topics at one time, with assessments based on all prior learning. This “programme-level” or “portfolio assessment” method could enable students to make new connections across different areas, and help them think more creatively about ways to solve unfamiliar problems.
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