Most of the high school students face serious difficulties in Physics, which can be observed by its high failure rates. In this way, this paper aims to a statistical investigation about students' performances in Physics and in other disciplines. For this purpose, it was evaluated the correlations between student grades in Physics and in other curricula. In addition, it was developed a multilevel model with two hierarchical levels: the student and the classroom. In this model it was evaluated simultaneously the influence of some disciplines on the performance in Physics. Data used were obtained in two public schools from the cities of Ouro Preto and Campo Belo. It was tried to identify whether the performance in Mathematics and Natural Science, representing the logical and deductive reasoning, as well as the performance in Portuguese and Human Sciences, representing the ability of read and interpret, has some connection to the performance in Physics. The results have shown that the highest correlation values are found between the grades in Mathematics and Physics and between the average grades in Chemistry and Biology and the grades in Physics. Beyond that, when considering simultaneously the grades, it was found again that the proficiencies in Mathematics and Chemistry/Biology have a positive impact in Physics. The National Curriculum Parameters (PCN) aim to an integration of knowledge in theme, in which the Natural Sciences theme includs Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Thus, the results between Physics and the other disciplines in this theme point to interdisciplinary work and aligned with the PCN.
Keywords:
Physics teaching; correlation; Multilevel Model; school performance; high school