Understanding or memorization: Are we teaching the right thing

When people I meet ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I am a physicist, I frequently hear horror stories about high school or college level physics – almost to the point of making me feel embarrassed about being a physicist! This general sense of frustration with introductory physics (mechanics, electricity and magnetism) is widespread among non-physics majors who are required to take physics courses. Even physics majors are frequently dissatisfied with their introductory courses and a large fraction of students initially interested in physics end up majoring in a different field. Frustration with introductory physics courses has been commented on since the days of Maxwell and has recently been publicized by Sheila Tobias. Tobias asked a number of graduate students in the humanities and social sciences to audit physics courses and describe their complaints. One may be tempted to brush off complaints by non-physics majors as coming from students who are ipso facto not interested in physics. Most of these students, however, are not complaining about other required courses outside their major field