Challenges in Undergraduate Physics Education: A Interpretive Structural Modeling Approach

As a subject, physics not only contributes, to the development of concepts, and theories but also has practical applications. Currently, undergraduate physics education faces many challenges in terms of enrolment, static curriculum, funding, teacher quality, student motivation etc. This paper attempts to identify, rank and classify a few of these challenges. The methodology adopted is Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), which is used to establish interrelationship among the selected challenges. ISM technique helps to designate the elements (challenges) in a hierarchical model with associations. The model thus derived could conceivably help physics educators and decision makers when planning strategies to improve undergraduate physics education.