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Using Diagnostic Tests to Evaluate Student Understanding

Using Diagnostic Tests to Evaluate Student Understanding. Presented by Glenn Wagner. Evaluating Student Understanding. Why Bother… What do your students know about fundamental physics concepts? Is your instruction developing understanding of fundamental physics concepts?.

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Using Diagnostic Tests to Evaluate Student Understanding

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  1. Using Diagnostic Tests to Evaluate Student Understanding Presented by Glenn Wagner

  2. Evaluating Student Understanding Why Bother… • What do your students know about fundamental physics concepts? • Is your instruction developing understanding of fundamental physics concepts?

  3. Force Concept Inventory (FCI) • Developed in 1992 (Hestenes, Halloun, Swackhammer) • Designed to test understanding for conceptual understanding in Newtonian physics • Tested extensively for validity and reliability • Includes ‘distractors’ to elicit pre-Newtonian thinking (e.g. heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects)

  4. How to Administer a Diagnostic Test • Begin with a pre-test before instruction (this gives a base-line of their initial understanding) • After instruction, give the same test again, post-test (how much learning did they gain in understanding?)

  5. We can extract two quantities… 1) Raw post scores (simply the final mark) 2) % gain in understanding % gain = (% posttest score) – (% pretest score) (100 – % pretest score)

  6. Let’s Play!!! Let’s complete the Force Concept Inventory

  7. Interpreting the Results Hestenes and Halloun say…. • 60% is the Newtonian ‘threshold’ where students have barely begun using Newtonian concepts coherently • 85% is the Newtonian Mastery threshold where students at this score or above are ‘confirmed Newtonian thinkers’

  8. Interpreting the % gain

  9. Mechanics Baseline Test (MBT) • Designed to test for the most basic concepts in mechanics • Use as a post-test only • Scores are expected to be lower than FCI since it is more difficult • FCI and MBT fit well together and give a broad snapshot of student understanding in Newtonian mechanics

  10. Diagnostic Test for Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUGK) • This diagnostic focusses on 3 fundamental areas: Slope of d-t graph gives velocity Slope of v-t graph gives acceleration Area under v-t graph gives displacement

  11. Try This…. • Apply FCI as a post test this June to your students (SPH 4U) • Apply FCI as a pre-test this September and post-test in January

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