Multidimensional item response theory and the force and motion conceptual evaluation

Yang, Jie; Zabriskie, Cabot; Stewart, John

doi:10.1103/physrevphyseducres.15.020141

Cited by 17 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…They stated that the total FCI score is the most reliable single index of student understanding, because it measures coherence across all dimensions of the Newtonian force concept. Single FCI items cannot be used to make reliable conclusions, but several items addressing the same dimension of the force concept can provide valuable information about specific learning difficulties that students may have (Thornton &Sokoloff, 1998;Savinainen& Scott,2002 b;Yang et al, 2019). Therefore, the total score of the test is the best single measure of a student's coherence of the force concept.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jordanian pre-service physics teacher's misconceptions about force and motion

Al-Rsa'i¹,

Khoshman²,

Tayeh³

2020

tused

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The objective of this study was to investigate the physics student-teachers misconceptions in force and motion concepts in Jordanian universities by using the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) test and to identify the cause of misconceptions related to these concepts. Also, the FCI has been used to detect whether misconceptions vary according to gender, the geographical place of the university in Jordan, and students' attitudes towards physics as a major. The study was conducted on (97) student-teachers attending to the different universities in Jordan. Data were analyzed by using t-test and ANOVA test. The results of the study indicated that physics student-teachers grasp high misconceptions about the impetus and active force. 20% of the students correctly answered the questions related to Newton's third law. In addition, the differences among the studied universities were not statistically significant in the FCI test (F = 1.311 and p = 0.247). Based on the Pearson Correlation Coefficient (PCC), there was no correlation between the GPA of the students at high school and their performance in the FCI test, whereas a significant correlation was found between the GPA of the students at university and their performance on the test. The results also demonstrated that the performance of the students on the test did not reflect significant differences in their major attitude as well as their gender at any University in Jordan. Thus, this study could be initiated with the aim of probing the Jordanian Universities attitudes towards learning Physics and their conceptual understanding of the Newtonian force concept in Physics.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jordanian pre-service physics teacher's misconceptions about force and motion

Al-Rsa'i¹,

Khoshman²,

Tayeh³

2020

tused

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“…"Force Graph" items (items [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] ask students about the force on a toy car as it moves across a low-friction surface; students select from a number of graphs. "Acceleration Graph" items (items [22][23][24][25][26] ask students to select the graph which correctly represents the acceleration of a toy car moving on a horizontal surface. "Coin Toss -Acceleration" items (items [27][28][29] ask students to select the acceleration of a coin tossed in the air.…”

Section: A the Fmce Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This methodology has recently been extended to the FMCE and will be referenced as Study 2. In Study 2, Yang et al performed a detailed analysis of the correct answers to the FMCE using constrained MIRT [25]. This technique produced a detailed model of the instrument in terms of the fundamental reasoning steps (principles) required for its solution.…”

Section: Study 2: Multidimensional Item Response Theory and The Fmcementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This discussion will focus on the analysis retaining nodes selected by 20% of the students; results retaining nodes selected by 5% and 10% of the students are discussed in RQ3. Modified Module Analysis showed the item groups proposed by Smith and Wittman were being consistently answered using a common misconception: the "Force Sled" (items 1-4, 7), the "Force Graph" (items 14, [16][17][18][19], "Acceleration Graphs" (items [22][23][24][25][26] and "Newton III" (items 30-32, 34, 36, 38) [27]. The "Reversing Direction" subgroup of items (items 8-10, 11-13, 27-29) [27] was not consistently identified as an incorrect answer community.…”

Section: A Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring the structure of misconceptions in the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation with modified module analysis

Wells

Henderson

Traxler

et al. 2020

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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Investigating student learning and understanding of conceptual physics is a primary research area within Physics Education Research (PER). Multiple quantitative methods have been employed to analyze commonly used mechanics conceptual inventories: the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE). Recently, researchers have applied network analytic techniques to explore the structure of the incorrect responses to the FCI identifying communities of incorrect responses which could be mapped on to common misconceptions. In this study, the method used to analyze the FCI, Modified Module Analysis (MMA), was applied to a large sample of FMCE pretest and post-test responses (Npre = 3956, Npost = 3719). The communities of incorrect responses identified were consistent with the item groups described in previous works. As in the work with the FCI, the network was simplified by only retaining nodes selected by a substantial number of students. Retaining nodes selected by 20% of the students produced communities associated with only four misconceptions. The incorrect response communities identified for men and women were substantially different, as was the change in these communities from pretest to post-test. The 20% threshold was far more restrictive than the 4% threshold applied to the FCI in the prior work which generated similar structures. Retaining nodes selected by 5% or 10% of students generated a large number of complex communities. The communities identified at the 10% threshold were generally associated with common misconceptions producing a far richer set of incorrect communities than the FCI; this may indicate that the FMCE is a superior instrument for characterizing the breadth of student misconceptions about Newtonian mechanics. *

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“…The incorrect communities identified, however, were often different for men and women both pre-and post-instruction as was the change in the communities from the pretest to the post-test. [15] also relied on a constrained MIRT analysis of the instrument to identify items requiring similar physical reasoning [17]. As in Study 1, incorrect answer communities were often formed of items requiring the same correct reasoning.…”

Section: Study 1 : Modified Module Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Extending modified module analysis to include correct responses: Analysis of the Force Concept Inventory

Yang¹,

Wells²,

Henderson³

et al. 2020

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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Brewe, Bruun, and Bearden first applied network analysis to understand patterns of incorrect conceptual physics reasoning in multiple-choice instruments introducing the Module Analysis for Multiple-Choice Responses (MAMCR) algorithm. Wells et al. proposed an extension to the algorithm which allowed the analysis of large datasets called Modified Module Analysis (MMA). This method analyzed the network structure of the correlation matrix of the responses to a multiple-choice instrument. Both MAMCR and MMA could only be applied to networks of incorrect responses. In this study, an extension of MMA is explored which allows the analysis of networks involving both correct and incorrect responses. The extension analyzes the network structure of the partial correlation matrix instead of the correlation matrix. The new algorithm, called MMA-P, was applied to the FCI and recovered much of the structure identified by MMA. The algorithm also identified sets of correct answers requiring similar physical reasoning reported in previous studies. Beyond groups of all correct and all incorrect responses, some groups of responses which mixed correct and incorrect responses were also identified. Some of these mixed response groups were produced when a correct response was selected for incorrect reasons; some of the groups helped to explain the gender unfairness previously reported for the FCI.

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Multidimensional item response theory and the force and motion conceptual evaluation

Cited by 17 publications

References 50 publications

Jordanian pre-service physics teacher's misconceptions about force and motion

Jordanian pre-service physics teacher's misconceptions about force and motion

Exploring the structure of misconceptions in the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation with modified module analysis

Extending modified module analysis to include correct responses: Analysis of the Force Concept Inventory

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