Abstract of Paper to be presented at the AAPT Summer Meeting in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, 29 July - 2 August 2000

One number does not say all
- use data from conceptual tests carefully!
Jonte Bernhard
Campus Norrköping
Linköping University
S-60174 Norrköping, Sweden
jonbe@itn.liu.se

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) [1] and the normalized gain [2] are widely used as indicators of conceptual understanding in mechanics. Currently there seems to be a trend to use these useful tools as absolute measures of course success. However behind small differences in the FCI-averages, or in the normalized gain, between different courses there could be large differences in the understanding of different conceptual areas such as Newton's' third law. For example: Two different courses had a 65% and 67% FCI-average respectively. When the FMCE-test [3] was used, the averages for student understanding of contact forces was 2% and 52% respectively and for collision forces 33% and 86%! These differences were due to different pedagogical approaches. The conclusion is that an average obtained with a conceptual test, such as the FCI, should be used with the appropriate care and could not be used as an absolute measure of success.

1. Hestenes D, Wells M and Swackhamer G. Phys Teach, 30, 159­165 (1992).
2. Hake R R. Am. J. Phys. 66, 64-74 (1998).
3. Thornton R K and Sokoloff D R. Am J Phys, 66, 338­352 (1998).

Link to presentation slides (pdf-format)