Physics lab instructors were forced to adapt their courses in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigate the impact these changes had on student views towards experimental physics as measured by the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS). Analysis of the responses from over 1600 students in both spring and fall semesters and performing a comparison with the same courses in 2019 shows that student total E-CLASS scores were not lower in 2020 compared to 2019. Nevertheless, in the Fall 2020 data, we find that there is a variation in the mean E-CLASS scores on some individual questions when compared to previous years. © 2021 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.
Lab instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic: Effects on student views about experimental physics in comparison with previous years