Re: PHYS-L Digest - 28 Dec 1999 - Special issue

[kyle forinash <kforinas@IUS.EDU>]

Jack and all;

You are right I was thinking of the old AAPT exams which are much
less conceptual (thanks for the correction). But I think my point is
valid that the change in scores between pre and post exams is the
only way to see if a particular method of instruction is better than
some other method. This is very different than testing to find out
the final level of understanding of a class (regardless of where or
how they learned it).

On the "warm fuzzies" issue I think we have to be careful. What
students want is not necessarily what we should give them. After all,
most students seem to want less education for their money (unlike
consumers of commercial  products).

kyle

Hi all-
        One small problem in Kyle's posting:

Adam was by constitution and proclivity a scientist; I was the same, and
we loved to call ourselves by that great name...Our first memorable
scientific discovery was the law that water and like fluids run downhill,
not up.
                          Mark Twain, <Extract from Eve's Autobiography>

On Tue, 28 Dec 1999, kyle forinash wrote:
> Some points:
> 1) I think we have to keep in mind what the FCI (and similar tests)
> is good for. We are trying to determine the best way(s) to present
> the material in class so that students gain the maximum
> understanding. The FCI is an attempt to compare one teaching method
> against another. I think it can be used for that. If I try something
> new next year (with a statistically valid sample of students) and the
> scores go up then maybe I'm on to something.
>
> 2) If you are evaluating teaching methods you want to know how much
> the student got out of YOUR class and YOUR methods. So It seems
> important to me to both pre and post test. Most standardized tests
> (such as the AP exam) are designed to be given once to assess
> knowledge base. They do not tell you where this knowledge came from
> (reading outside of class, mom is a mathematician etc.)

        This is a total misconception about the nature of the physics
AP exam, at least the Physics C exam.
        Each exam (mechanics and E&M) is in two parts, multiple choice
and free response problem solving.  The multiple choice part is not
all that different from the FCI, it tests for fundamental misconceptions
about basic concepts.  It does NOT repeat NOT test for a "knowledge
base".  The free response part consists of problems that can be done
by students who understand the broad principles of their subject;
e.g., how to construct a free-body diagram, how to appply Gauss' Law,
etc.  It tests whether a student who has taken an introductory physics
course can actually use the principles taught in almost all such courses
to solve problems.
        I have used old AP exams as final exams, grading them according
to the AP grading rules.  The results were IMHO an excellent measure
of how well I'd gotten basic principles across to the students.
                                Regards,
                                        Jack

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  kyle forinash   812-941-2390
  kforinas@ius.edu
  Natural Science Division
  Indiana University Southeast
  New Albany, IN    47150
  http://Physics.ius.edu/
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