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- As there are exceptions, statistical tests should always be done when FCI is administered in a new context. Introduction Standardised multiple-choice tests can be used in physics education to assess student learning. A number of such tests have been...
- Considering the extended use of FCI, it should work as a tool in assessing the learning of Norwegian students in their introductionary physics courses. In order to investigate the reliability and discrimination power of FCI at a Norwegian...
- Background A concept inventory is a criterion-referenced test designed to evaluate whether students have an accurate knowledge of a specific set of concepts. Concept inventories are typically organized as multiple-choice tests in order to ensure that they are scored in a reproducible manner and possible to administrate in large classes. Unlike a teacher-made multiple-choice test, questions and response choices in concept inventories are a subject of extensive research.
- The aims of the research may include ascertaining a the range of what individuals think a particular question is asking and b the most common responses to the questions. In the concept inventory, each question includes one correct answer and several distractors. The distractors are incorrect answers that are usually but not always based on students' commonly held misconceptions.
Establishing A Free-text Version Of The Force Concept Inventory
Ideally, the scores reflect the amount of content knowledge students has mastered. The purpose of a criterion-referenced test is to ascertain whether students master a predetermined amount of content knowledge. The distractors are often based on ideas commonly held by students, as determined by years of research on misconceptions. The test has 30 questions covering six areas of understanding: kinematics, Newton's First, Second, and Third Laws, the superposition principle, and types of forces such as gravitation, friction.- A Norwegian version of FCI was translated and developed by Angell and collaborators at University of Oslo Angell Student groups The test was given in three different courses with student groups, both as a pre- instruction and post- instruction test in the Fall semester The Courses were traditional calculus- based introductory physics courses. As all engineering students at NTNU have to take at least one course in physics, it was possible to administer FCI to both physics masters and non- physics masters. However, different physics courses are given to different masters programs, but all courses contain about the same amount of dynamics content relevant for the FCI survey during lectures and are using the same textbook as the main source.
Evaluating The Force Concept Inventory For Different Student Groups At NTNU
The test was voluntary with no extra credit given. The numbers of students taking the tests are given in Table 1. The result of the tests with respect to understanding will be presented elsewhere as we focus on the reliability of the test in this paper. The students in the different groups have a similar background, but one can assume that the Physics Masters has a more explicit interest and knowledge in physics and will subsequently score higher on the FCI. The Physics masters and Nanotechnology students are generally believed to be high-achieving students as admission grades are higher compared with the other Master programs.- The Physics masters and Nanotechnology students are first year students while the others are second year students. By examining the results in the different groups it is possible to establish the reliability within each group. The greater the P value, the higher percentage of correct answers and consequently the easier the item is for the population. The difficulty index will also depend on the population which is the case in this study. There are a number of different criteria for acceptable values of the difficulty index for a test Doran A widely adopted criterion requires the difficulty index to be between 0. The difficulty index in the pre-tests, fall, in most cases, within the desired range of 0. There are maximum 4 items with difficulty index above 0. In the post-test the number of questions with a difficulty above 0. The average difficulty indexes for the tests are given in table 2. The average difficulty indexes range from 0. Even if the results fall within the acceptable range, the values are very close to the limit of the acceptable range.
- Taking in to account that the number of items with a difficulty index over 0. However, if one want to study the weaker part of the student population, the test can still be used. That is, the extent to which an individual test item distinguishes a student who know the material well from those who do not. A high discrimination index will therefore indicate a higher probability for students with a robust knowledge to answer the item correctly, while those with less knowledge will get the wrong answer. The item discrimination index D is calculated by first dividing the sample into two groups of equal size, a high H score group and a low L score group based on their individual total scores on the test. For a specific item, one counts the number of correct answers in both the high and low groups: NH and NL. If none in the high score group and all in the low score group get the correct answer the discrimination index would be These extremes are unlikely, but it is a good practice to remove items with negative discrimination index.
The Force Concept Inventory As A Measure Of Students Conceptual Coherence
In a test with a number of items it is possible to allow a few items with a lower discrimination index, but the majority should have high discrimination indices in order to ensure that the test can distinguish strong and weak mastery. This can also be checked by calculating the averaged discrimination index D for all items in the test. The average discrimination indices are 0. This indicates that the FCI has a good discriminating power in the pre-test situation. This raises serious doubts as how applicable the post-test is for the TFY group.- The discrimination power for the TFY group is lower than in the pre-test but still within the accepted range. In the TFY group, the discrimination index remains almost the same 0. Questions 6, 16 and 29, and to some extent question 19 are especially doubtful as they combine a high difficulty index, that is being quite simple, with a low discrimination index, not distinguishing the high score and low score groups. It reflects the correlation between the total score and the score on individual items. A positive coefficient indicates that a student with a high total score is more likely to answer the item correctly than a student with a low total score.
- To calculate the point biserial coefficient for an item, one calculates the correlation between the score for a question and the total scores. A reliable item should be consistent with the whole test so a high correlation between individual questions score and the total score is desirable. Items with lower values may still be used, as long as the number is small, but the test as a whole should have an average higher than 0. The average point biserial coefficients for the different student groups are given in table 3. All values are greater than 0.
The Force Concept Inventory And Adult Learners - Physics LibreTexts
Figures 5 and 6 shows the point biserial coefficients for the individual items in the pre- and post-tests for different student groups, respectively. It should be noted that questions 16, 19 and 29 overall show a lower degree of correlation than the others. As these questions also show a lower degree of discrimination and these might be subject to revision, at least in the context of the student groups in this study. There is a course-dependent variation of the pbc for the post-test. These variations might be due to statistical variations and different course context. In order to examine the reliability of the whole test, other methods have to be used. Kuder-Richardson reliability index A not very practical way to evaluate the reliability of a test, is to administer it twice to the same sample. The correlation coefficient between the two sets of scores will be defining the reliability index of the test.- It is obvious that this method is not practical to use. In the case of a test that has been specifically designed for a certain knowledge domain with parallel questions, the Spearman-Brown formula Ghiselli, Campbell and Zedeck can be used to calculate the reliability index. This equation connects the reliability index with the correlation between any two parallel equally sized subsets of the test.
(PDF) Force Concept Inventory | David Hestenes - Medicoguia.com
That is, each item is considered as a single parallel test assuming that the means, variance and standard deviation is the same for all items. This expression takes the different variances of the items into account, relaxing the assumption that all items must have the same means, variance and standard deviation. In this study the obtained Kuder-Richardson reliability indices are all over 0. Something that also open up for individual assessment. One aims at a broad distribution in total scores, as this shows a better discrimination. The aim of this study was to test the applicability of the FCI in different contexts, as made possible with Physics majors and engineering students required to take at least one physics course at NTNU. We have found that the FCI is reliable and discriminating enough for pre-tests in all student groups. The average discrimination index, though still over the 0. A similar but not as serious problem can also be seen in the TFY group.- However, it is still possible to use the test for specific subgroups, that is low achieving students, in order to investigate their understanding. The Force Concept Inventory is a widely used instrument, but as has been shown here, it can not be used without taking the context and student groups into account. Used on a high- achieving group, there is a substantial risk of encountering ceiling effects, with a decrease in discriminatory power.
- It will still be useful for the students within this group that has not obtained an understanding of the fundamental concepts. Questions 6, 16, 19 and 29 in the FCI are somewhat problematic and might be replaced with other questions in a high-achieving group, such as TFY However, one might also consider constructing a special high-achieving FCI suitable for Physics majors. ST Phys. Doran, R.
Concept Inventories For Evaluating Teaching – Active Learning At King's
The FCI is a item multiple choice test focusing on the core concepts of force and motion. It does not cover other important mechanics topics including energy and angular momentum. The "distractors" i. Work is in progress to investigate the reasons for this underperformance. The number of students tested for each curriculum at each institution is indicated in the figure. The total number of students tested in each curriculum at each institution is the same as in the first figure.Multiple-choice Concept Inventories: Topics By Medicoguia.com
The plots are constructed from binned data with bin widths equal to approximately 6. The distributions appear sawtoothed because scores are discrete values. The number of students tested in a particular section is given by NO in the table below. The numerical labels indicate the corresponding question number in order of appearance on the FCI. Different lecturers are distinguished by a unique letter in column L. Moreover, in those sections where data is available, the average FCI score I for NI students entering the course are indicated. Nm is the number of students in a given section who took the FCI both at the beginning and at the end of their mechanics course. References There are several references to consider when discussing the FCI. Those references are listed below: Hestenes, D.
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