Randall D. Knight discusses his dynamic approach for researching and developing what has become the most successful new university physics text in the past 30 years.

Randy Knight, author of Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics: A Strategic Approach and Five Easy Lessons: Strategies for Successful Physics Teaching, has taught introductory physics for over 20 years at Ohio State University and California Polytechnic University. His research interests are in the field of lasers and spectroscopy, and he has published over 25 research papers. He recently led the effort to establish an environmental studies program at Cal Poly, where he teaches university physics and classes on energy, oceanography, and environmental issues.

AW |  What inspired you to start on the book?

RK | A couple of things. When I first started teaching, I thought, as do many new professors, that my "brilliant" lectures would inspire students to great feats of learning. Alas, what students learned, or didn't learn, turned out to have almost no correlation with my lectures. Although I didn't know how at the time, I began to think there must be a better way to teach physics. At about the same time I began to be discouraged by the vast amount of physics presented in most textbooks, often will little coherence or rationale.

As I began to see the course more through the eyes of students, it was no longer surprising to me that most students were having an unpleasant experience with physics. I wanted to change that. Fortunately, this was at the time that physics education research was just beginning to make its mark, and things just kind of came together.

AW |  Many physics textbooks in recent years have been "retrofitted" with some ideas from educational research. How is your book different from this?

RK | My book is the first and thus far the only physics textbook built "from the ground up" with physics education research in mind. That has allowed me to develop a book with much more overall coherence than is possible with a retrofit.

AW |  There are so many ideas to emerge from educational research, as you outlined so nicely in your book Five Easy Lessons: Strategies for Successful Physics Teaching. What benchmarks did you use when figuring out what should go in your book?

RK | I tried to develop a large-scale coherence in which a number of fundamental concepts, such as motion and energy, keep recurring and are further developed each time they recur. Education research has taught us that students don't progress far with quantitative problem solving without a firm grasp of the concepts. I tried to avoid "factoids" that, however entertaining, didn't contribute to the development of the basic story line.

AW | Can you tell us some of the educational researchers whose work you have drawn upon and why you thought their ideas were particularly valuable?

RK | There are too many to name. I'm probably most indebted to Lillian McDermott and the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington. They've been instrumental not only in identifying the difficulties students face but also in discovering more effective ways to teach physics. Alan Van Heuvelen has also been a big influence. Other investigators I've depended upon include Arnold Arons, David Hestenes, Fred Reif, and Ron Thornton.

AW | Since your book incorporates so many new ideas, does it require the instructor to reorganize the way they teach?

RK | My book doesn't "require" a different approach to teaching, but I hope the book and the Instructor's Guide will inspire teachers to try some new ideas in the classroom.

AW | Your book incorporates a unique approach in physics textbooks of helping students "read" the graphs and other physics figures by including simple "annotations" on the figures themselves. How did you arrive at this idea for helping students?

RK | Psychologist Richard Mayer, at UC Santa Barbara, has spent many years studying visual learning, and he found that students do better when there's more information on the figures and less in the accompanying text. My development editor, Alice Houston, was also thinking of something like this, so a synergy was born when I showed her some of Mayer's papers.

AW | Most new textbooks are reviewed primarily by instructors. However, during the long development of your book it was tested on more than 5,000 students. Why did you think that was important and how did student comments impact how you wrote the book?

RK | It was important in two ways. First, I relied heavily on student comments as I was revising the preliminary edition. My goal, after all, was to write a student-centered book, so I had to take it seriously when students said they liked or didn't like something. Second, having so many class tests helped get instructors to pay more attention to what their students think about books. We found, in head-to-head comparisons, that 85% of students preferred my book to the book they normally used, and I think this fact really impressed instructors.

AW | Your book is already the most successful new university physics textbook published in 30 years. Did you imagine that so many schools would adopt the book so quickly during the 10 years you put into writing?

RK | One always dreams of success, but I never really imagined it would take off this quickly. I'm very gratified.

AW | What's been the most valuable experience for you in writing this book?

RK | That's a tough one. I've met and worked with many great people at Addison-Wesley, and that's been a wonderful experience despite the often frantic nature of the work. But overall, I think the best experience is thinking that I've made a significant contribution to the science education of thousands of future scientists and engineers.

AW | What are you working on next?

RK | With co-authors Stuart Field and Brian Jones at Colorado State University, I'm now at work on an algebra-based textbook aimed at the physics course taken by biological science and health profession students. It will have the same research-based flavor as Physics for Scientists and Engineers, but it will include a wealth of practical examples of interest to these students. And did I mention that I'm trying to get my life back in order now that Physics for Scientists and Engineers is done?