Probing Students Misconceptions results from Concept Inventory and Their Understanding in Science Learning
Abstract
Concept inventory (CI) tests are typically used to measure students’ general knowledge before and after instruction. We find issue with the current format of these tests, which some researchers claim, measure students’ misconceptions, since the answers choices given to students do not take into account their prior knowledge. We particularly analyze Force Concept Inventory (FCI) tests results to reflect on what CI tests are measuring in general. Also, students’ choices on FCIs are more associated with their natural experiences than their knowledge of the Newtonian signals. Thus, we propose some modifications to the FCI format and show how this change helps to parse out what of students’ answers are simple misunderstanding or true misconceptions to focus on building instruction. Results show that: 1/ Concepts are very disorganized in students’ minds, 2/ despite some improvement at post-test, students’ choices from pre-test to post-test do not stay consistent, 3/ modifying the test helped come up with clearer explanations about students’ choices. We found that very little work has been done to assess and rethink FCIs in the past few decades. Our new proposed design opens doors to fairer and more organic testing/assessment practices in college STEM.References
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Tolman, E. C., & Honzik, C. H. (1930). “Insight” in rats, Vol. 4, pp. 215–232. Berkeley, CA: University of California, Publications in Psychology.
Bruun, J., & Brewe, E. (2013). Talking and learning physics: Predicting future grades from network measures and Force Concept Inventory pre-test scores. Physical Review Special Topics-Physics Education Research, 9(2), 020109.
Chi, M. T. H. (2008). Three types of conceptual change: Belief revision, mental model transformation, and categorical shift. In S. Vosniadou (Ed.), Handbook of research on conceptual change (pp. 61–82). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum)
Chiesa, M. (1992). Radical behaviorism and scientific frameworks: From mechanistic to relational accounts. American Psychologist, 47, 1287–1299. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.47.11.1287
Chiesa, M. (1994). Radical behaviorism: The philosophy and the science. Boston, MA: Authors’ Cooperative.
Crogman, T. H. (2017, December). Grasping the interplay between the Verbal Cultural diversity and Critical thinking, and their Consequences for African American education. In Frontiers in Education, 2 (p. 64). Frontiers.
Crogman, T. H. & TrebeauCrogman, M. (2018). Modified generated question learning, and its classroom implementation and assessment. Cogent Education, 5(1), 1459340.
Crogman, T. H. & TrebeauCrogman, M. (2016). Generated questions learning model (GQLM): Beyond learning styles. Cogent Education, 3(1), 1202460.
Crogman, T.H., TrebeauCrogman, A.M., Warner, L., Mustafa, A.,& Peters, R.(2015).Developing a new teaching paradigm for the 21st century learners in the context of Socratic methodologies. British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioral Science, 9, 62–95.
Crouch, C., & Mazur, E. (2001). Peer instruction: Ten years of experience and results. American Journal of Physics, 69(9), 970-977.
Demirci, N. (2005). A Study about Students' Misconceptions in Force and Motion Concepts by Incorporating a Web-Assisted Physics Program. Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology-TOJET, 4(3), 40-48.
Fadaei, A. S., & Mora, C. (2015). An investigation about misconceptions in force and motion in high school. US-China Education Review, 5(1), 38-45.
Griffiths. D, (1997). Millikan Lecture 1997: Is there a text in this class? Am. J. Phys. 65: 1141-1143.
Hall, G. (2003). The psychology of learning. In L. Nadel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of cognitive science (Vol. 2, pp. 837–845). London: Nature Publishing Group.
Hake, R. R. (1998). Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. American journal of Physics, 66(1), 64-74.
Hestenes, D. (1998). Who needs physics education research!? Am J Phys. 66: 465–7.
Hestenes, D., Wells, M., & Swackhamer, G. (1992). Force concept inventory. The physics teacher, 30(3), 141-158.
Hestenes, D., & Halloun, I. (1995). Interpreting the force concept inventory: A response to March 1995 critique by Huffman and Heller. The Physics Teacher, 33(8), 502- 502.
Huffman, D., & Heller, P. (1995). What does the force concept inventory actually measure? The Physics Teacher, 33(3), 138-143.
Hume, D. (1748). An inquiry concerning human understanding, 1955. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.
Humphreys-Jones, C. (1986). Make, make do and mend: The role of the hearer in misunderstandings. In G. McGregor (Ed.) Language for Hearers(pp. 105-126). Oxford, England: Pergamon Press.
Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development Englewood Cli., NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Kolb, D. (1985). Learning style inventory: Self scoring inventory and interpretation booklet. Boston, MA: McBer & Company.
Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of personality and social psychology, 77(6), 1121
Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Leith, D. (1987). Drag on non-spherical objects. Aerosol science and technology, 6(2), 153-161.
Madsen, A., McKagan, S. B., & Sayre, E. C. (2017). Best practices for administering concept inventories. The Physics Teacher, 55(9), 530-536.
Sayer, I. M. (2013). Misunderstanding and language comprehension. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 70, 738-748.
Schunk, D. H. (1991). Learning theories: An educational perspective. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. New York, NY: Appleton-Century.
Thornton R. K, Sokoloff D. R. (1998). Assessing student learning of Newton’s laws: The Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation and the Evaluation of Active Learning Laboratory and Lecture Curricula. American Journal of Physics, 66 (4): 338.
Tolman, E. C., & Honzik, C. H. (1930). “Insight” in rats, Vol. 4, pp. 215–232. Berkeley, CA: University of California, Publications in Psychology.
Published
2018-10-18
How to Cite
CROGMAN, Horace; PETERS, Raul; TREBEAUCROGMAN, Maryam.
Probing Students Misconceptions results from Concept Inventory and Their Understanding in Science Learning.
European Journal of Physics Education, [S.l.], v. 9, n. 1, p. 23-44, oct. 2018.
ISSN 1309-7202.
Available at: <https://eu-journal.org/index.php/EJPE/article/view/209>. Date accessed: 24 apr. 2024.
doi: https://doi.org/10.20308/ejpe.v9i1.209.
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