Statistical Analysis on Scale and Regional Distribution of Undergraduate Physics Programs in Korean Universities

TL;DR

This study analyzes the historical trends and regional disparities in undergraduate physics programs in Korean universities from 1915 to 2023, highlighting shifts in department numbers, focus areas, and regional imbalances using statistical physics methods.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of physics program trends and regional disparities in Korea, applying scaling theory to quantify imbalances and recent shifts in department focus.

Findings

Peak in physics departments around 2000, then decline

Increased emphasis on applied fields like semiconductors and data

Growing regional imbalance in physics education

Abstract

We report on the temporal changes in undergraduate-level physics programs at Korean universities from 1915 to 2023 by analyzing data on physics-related departments and their students using basic statistics and the scaling theory of statistical physics. Our analysis reveals that the number of departments peaked around the turn of the 21st century, and it has been steadily decreasing ever since, with particularly severe declines in private universities located outside the capital region. Besides the change in the overall numbers, we also show the change in the self-identity of physics-related departments reflected in department names, which reveals a recent trend of emphasizing more application-side such as semiconductors and data. As a sophisticated measure to quantify regional imbalances relative to the population eligible for higher education, we present scaling exponents from the scaling theory, which shows a shift from sublinear to linear for departments and a shift from linear to superlinear for students. The result indicates the exacerbation of the regional imbalance of university-level physics education in Korea.