The puzzling reliability of the Force Concept Inventory

Lasry, Nathaniel; Rosenfield, Steven; Dedic, Helena; Dahan, Ariel; Reshef, Orad

doi:10.1119/1.3602073

Cited by 57 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The FCI has repeatedly been shown to be an instrument with high internal consistency as measured by Cronbach's alpha [16,21]. All correlations with jrj > 0.3 are positive in Fig.…”

Section: B Correlation Analysismentioning

confidence: 80%

Multidimensional item response theory and the Force Concept Inventory

Stewart

Zabriskie

DeVore

2018

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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Research on the test structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has largely been performed with exploratory methods such as factor analysis and cluster analysis. Multidimensional Item Response Theory (MIRT) provides an alternative to traditional exploratory factor analysis which allows statistical testing to identify the optimal number of factors. Application of MIRT to a sample of N ¼ 4716 FCI post-tests identified a 9-factor solution as optimal. Additional analysis showed that a substantial part of the identified factor structure resulted from the practice of using problem blocks and from pairs of similar questions. Applying MIRT to a reduced set of FCI items removing blocked items and repeated items produced a 6-factor solution; however, the factors still had little relation the general structure of Newtonian mechanics. A theoretical model of the FCI was constructed from expert solutions and fit to the FCI by constraining the MIRT parameter matrix to the theoretical model. Variations on the theoretical model were then explored to identify an optimal model. The optimal model supported the differentiation of Newton's 1st and 2nd law; of one-dimensional and three-dimensional kinematics; and of the principle of the addition of forces from Newton's 2nd law. The model suggested by the authors of the FCI was also fit; the optimal MIRT model was statistically superior.

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“…The FCI has repeatedly been shown to be an instrument with high internal consistency as measured by Cronbach's alpha [16,21]. All correlations with jrj > 0.3 are positive in Fig.…”

Section: B Correlation Analysismentioning

confidence: 80%

Multidimensional item response theory and the Force Concept Inventory

Stewart

Zabriskie

DeVore

2018

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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“…We found that both surveys had high [30]. The range for KR-20 is between 0 (indicative of no internal consistency) and 1 (perfect internal consistency).…”

Section: Conceptual Surveysmentioning

confidence: 82%

Analysis of student engagement in an online annotation system in the context of a flipped introductory physics class

Zyto

Karger

Yoo

et al. 2016

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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We discuss student participation in an online social annotation forum over two semesters of a flipped, introductory physics course at Harvard University. We find that students who engage in high-level discussion online, especially by providing answers to their peers' questions, make more gains in conceptual understanding than students who do not. This is true regardless of students' physics background. We find that we can steer online interaction towards more productive and engaging discussion by seeding the discussion and managing the size of the sections. Seeded sections produce higher quality annotations and a greater proportion of generative threads than unseeded sections. Larger sections produce longer threads; however, beyond a certain section size, the quality of the discussion decreases.

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“…We used the FCI mainly because it is among the most studied and widely used instruments in physics education research [25] and because it is (somewhat surprisingly) reliable [26]. We then calculated average normalized gains for each student in each section [2,27].…”

Section: Force Concept Inventorymentioning

confidence: 99%

When teacher-centered instructors are assigned to student-centered classrooms

Lasry

Charles

Whittaker

2014

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.

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Technology-rich student-centered classrooms such as SCALE-UP and TEAL are designed to actively engage students. We examine what happens when the design of the classroom (conventional or teachercentered versus student-centered classroom spaces) is consistent or inconsistent with the teacher's epistemic beliefs about learning and teaching (traditional or teacher-centered versus student-centered pedagogies). We compare two types of pedagogical approaches and two types of classroom settings through a quasiexperimental 2 × 2 factorial design. We collected data from 214 students registered in eight sections of an introductory calculus-based mechanics course given at a Canadian publicly funded two-year college. All students were given the Force Concept Inventory at the beginning and at the end of the 15-week-long course. We then focused on six teachers assigned to teach in the student-centered classroom spaces. We used qualitative observations and the Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI), a self-reported questionnaire, to determine the teachers' epistemic beliefs (teacher-centered or student-centered) and how these beliefs affected their use of the space and their students' conceptual learning. We report four main findings. First, the student-centered classroom spaces are most effective when used with student-centered pedagogies. Second, student-centered classrooms are ineffective when used with teacher-centered pedagogies and may have negative effects for students with low prior knowledge. Third, we find a strong correlation between six instructors' self-reported epistemic beliefs of student centeredness and their classes' average normalized gain (r ¼ 0.91; p ¼ 0.012). Last, we find that some instructors are more willing to adopt student-centered teaching practices after using student-centered classroom spaces. These data suggest that student-centered classrooms are effective only when instructors' epistemic framework of teaching and learning is consistent with a student-centered pedagogy. However, the use of the studentcentered classrooms may change instructors' epistemic frameworks over time. Further research should focus on how to better support teachers with shifting epistemic frameworks as well as helping students with lower prior knowledge in student-centered classroom spaces.

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The puzzling reliability of the Force Concept Inventory

Cited by 57 publications

References 14 publications

Multidimensional item response theory and the Force Concept Inventory

Multidimensional item response theory and the Force Concept Inventory

Analysis of student engagement in an online annotation system in the context of a flipped introductory physics class

When teacher-centered instructors are assigned to student-centered classrooms

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