Lies, damned lies, and physics: part II

... but wait, there's more!

In "Has physics become cool again?" a Beeb science columnist tries to claim that physics is the most in demand of the sciences. Quote (next to another photo of Prof Cox):

"The total number of students entered for physics A-level has increased by 6.1%, from 30,976 in 2010 to 32,860 in 2011. Applications for physics courses at university are also up by more than 17% on last year and astronomy is up by a whopping 40%.

...

Higher tuition fees are likely to be a major factor in students opting for courses that are more likely to get them a job.

But that doesn't fully explain why physics and astronomy in particular are so much more in demand than other science based subjects."

Physics? Really?

Let's look at the numbers again shall we, starting with A-level students as I've got that data to hand from researching my last post:

Subject	Entries 2009	Entries 2010	Entries 2011	Increase 2010-11
Biology	55485	57854	62041	7.24%
Chemistry	42491	44051	48082	9.15%
Physics	29436	30976	32860	6.08%

Source: JCQ web site

So A-level students much prefer biology to physics by almost 2:1 in 2011.

Nevermind. To be fair, the quote is more about university courses than A-levels, so let's turn our attention to what UCAS can tell us about what courses new science students started last autumn:

Subject	Accepted applicants	Percentage change
Astronomy	155	n/a
Biology	4997	7.4%
Chemistry	4316	10.8%
Physics	3657	2.9%

Source: "Final end of year figures 2010" UCAS

This is similar to the A-level data: once again biology comes out on top, and the biggest growth is in chemistry undergraduates.

The only potential support for the line "physics and astronomy in particular are so much more in demand than other science based subjects" comes from what UCAS shows sixth formers have been applying to study in the 2010/11 application cycle:

Subject	Applicants	Percentage change
Astronomy	1223	40.3%
Biology	30066	8.3%
Chemistry	24939	9.5%
Physics	23924	17.4%

Source: "Applicants and applications received by 30 June 2011" UCAS

The percentage changes match the numbers quoted in the Beeb article and show that in terms of increase in demand, physics and astronomy have seen the biggest surges. However, once again the most in demand science is in fact biology with nearly 7,000 more applicants than physics.

What interests me is why are Pearson/Edexcel and the Beeb so keen to talk up a resurgence of interest in physics when the A-level numbers show that in real terms less students are studying physics now than back in 2000, and biology and chemistry remain more popular at undergraduate level too?

The big ol' cynic in me thinks Pearson/Edexcel have a clear interest in getting more students to take physics exams and buy pricey textbooks by persuading them that physics is the cool subject de jour. The Beeb may want to reinforce their public service credentials by demonstrating that their programming with ex-pop-star-turned-professor Cox is turning kids on to reading physics.

More frustrating is that all this fuss over TV and physics distracts from the key issue that science subjects have not been popular over the last ten years and very little has been done to fix this. A TV series showing some pretty pictures of the sky doesn't really cut it.

New Labour and now the Coalition have done precious little to encourage students into STEM subjects and then into industry. The best the latest government has delivered is to spare STEM subjects from the HE funding bomb that it's detonated under arts and humanities subjects.

In a century which is likely to be defined by a desperate rush to move from oil-based energy products to something else, physicists are going to be of vital important. I just wish that the Powers That Be worried less about talking up physics and started taking action to support it and other science subjects instead.


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Lies, damned lies, and physics

Do you know this man?

According to Ziggy Liaquat from Pearson/Edexcel (experts in making huge bundles of cash from exam fees and related text books), the "Brian Cox effect" has led to a "boom" in students studying maths and physics at A-level, as reported by the Telegraph, Guardian, Metro...

All very exciting. The Guardian (link above) reports:

"Entries for A-level maths are up by just over 40% over five years, while the number of entries for physics has risen by 19.6% and chemistry is up 19.4%"

On the face of it, great news for everyone. Science/maths subjects are crucial in pretty much everything we do in the 21st century. However, looking at the actual numbers, this analysis starts running into problems:

Subject	Entries 2006	Entries 2011	Increase
Chemistry	40,064	48,082	20.01%
Maths	55,982	82,995	48.25%
Physics	27,368	32,860	20.07%
All subjects	805,698	867,317	7.65%

Source: Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) website

The first obvious issue is that my numbers just don't match the Guardian's. I will be writing to them to ask what their source is. My guess is they are either just focusing on Edexcel and not all exam boards, or maybe they are focusing on only England - the JCQ numbers above are for "All UK candidates".

The Telegraph article (link above) have used the same source as me:

"According to data published on Thursday, the number of sixth-formers studying physics alone has soared by almost a fifth in just five years to around 32,860"

so I am not completely mad.

Ignoring the difference in exact numbers, there is still a problem. More students are taking A-levels than 5 years ago. Therefore, pro-rata, the increases in science and maths are not as big as they may seem.

It is also important that they have chosen to talk about the last 5 years, because 2006 was the low point in a particularly alarming dip in the number of students studying physics A-level in particular.

To show what I mean, let's go back a bit further to the year 2000:

Subject	Entries 2000	Entries 2011	Increase
Chemistry	40,856	48,082	17.69%
Maths	67,036	82,995	23.81%
Physics	32,059	32,860	2.5%
All subjects	771,809	867,317	12.37%

Source: Year 2000 numbers are included in brackets in the 2001 report from the JCQ website - see page 10 for A-level Physics

We can see that compared to just over 10 years ago, the "boom" in students studying maths is actually much smaller, even more so when we factor in that nearly 96,000 more A-levels were sat in 2011 than 2000.

The physics number is not a typo. The "Brain Cox effect" is that all of 801 more students took A-level physics in 2011 than in 2000. Again, when we consider that so many more A-levels are being sat now, we have actually gone backwards in terms of the proportion of A-levels being taken in physics over the last 11 years.

Photo by widdowquinn on Flikr

Teachers' pets

Today it was music. And citizenship. At the same time.

Last month it was RE. For Michael Gove it's history, and maybe geography too, though no-one is too sure about how the latter slipped in. Carol Vordaman has even popped back up waffling on about hers.

Yes, everyone has their pet subject, and everyone thinks that there's is the most important, the most undervalued, the most essential for curing all of society's myriad problems. Now that the mystical Ebacc has landed from the sky, everyone also thinks that their pet subject should be included as a compulsory subject.

As a computer scientist, mine is ICT. Not many people seem too fussed about ICT (except parents, but they don't matter nearly as much as Carol - she was on the telly!). It's clearly an important subject for the 21st century, and kids have got a much better chance of getting totally minted by coming up with a cunning e-business than they are becoming a professional footballer or even the next Carol.

But I seriously hope that ICT does not become one of the chosen few included in the Ebacc. Why?

1. Beyond being able to read, write and count properly, everything else we should or should not be teaching kids is very much in the eye of the beholder. I haven't made up my mind on foreign languages, and I'm even starting to wonder about science. I definitely think teaching kids citizenship is a pointless waste of time. I'm sure many citizenship teachers would say the same about ICT, and I'd agree with them. Why?

2. ICT courses are terrible. Some more than others, but none are currently worth making compulsory. The very nature of the subject means most courses are out of date in an instant. Writing a letter in Word is an important skill, but one most kids can pick up no problem when they get out into the world of work. Unless we get some courses that includes stuff like how to set up a web server with a MySQL database it's really not worth it.

3. The worst possible way to get the average teenager to do something is to tell them that they have to do it. (Myself, I have never managed to grow out of it. Give me an order, and I will probably say no. It's a reflex. I just don't like it.) We should really let them choose the majority of the subjects that they study for a variety of obvious reasons, not least of all that they are much more likely to pay attention when I try to teach them.

So the music and citizenship teachers can keep it. I don't want my subject to be any part of this Ebacc malarky - it will only end in tears anyway.

c

Riots: we deserve this. We brought it on ourselves

It's time to wake up. We sleepwalked into this situation, and we only have ourselves to blame.

I rarely agree with David Cameron, but when he talked about a "broken society", this is what he meant. An article in the Independent by Camila Batmanghelidjh has been doing the rounds on Twitter, with lots of people posting with it that the author is "someone who knows what she is talking about".

Why are we surprised and impressed by being able to read something written by someone with a clue? She doesn't actually say anything that groundbreaking... Lots of us know - surely, lots of us do actually know - what is going on in our society, and that it is broken. We know that successive governments have deliberately neglected the poorest people in this country. It was also surely obvious that things could go wrong in this way if that neglect continued. We didn't need Batmanghelidjh to tell us.

The hard part is who is to blame. I have just read a blog post by Sunny Hundal that makes the point I was about to make: that by sitting at home, tweeting and blogging, we are not part of the solution, so we are part of the problem. We brought this on ourselves, and we need to get out into the "community" and work to support those who need it. Not out of altruism, but out of what we have seen now: if we don't do this, our cities will burn.

We have to take the blame for trying to kid ourselves that we can either ignore the people struggling in society, or rack up huge national debt based on make-believe financial systems to try and pay for it. If we want to maintain our society, our quality of life, our safety, we have to pay for it through taxation. We also need to make sure the banks and multinationals start paying their taxes too.

We must also realise that we are also to blame for voting in these governments that have conned us that all this will work. I like Ken Livingstone less the more I learn about him, but he got it spot on when he called our top politicians a "cabinet of millionaires" - but we picked those people! Until we realise that professional politicians picked out from the social elites who have no experience of the real world are not the way forward, this will continue to happen again and again for generations to come.

We need to build better communities. We need to elect proper people of substance as our politicians instead of the hairdos we've got at the moment.

The important thing is that we now do this. We must not simply talk or type about it. We have to blame ourselves, take responsibility as individuals and a society, and start to become part of the solution.

Hold the front page

I have never even heard of the Sunday Post, but I don't think it's quite for me:





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