NSF Award
0737181
Physics (13) Intellectual merit: The project is beginning the development and testing of a standard assessment to measure student understanding of physics. The assessment in this project is more inclusive than existing standard assessments and can be used across colleges and universities to help evaluate the effectiveness of both traditionally and non-traditionally taught physics courses. <br/><br/>There are currently other standard assessment instruments available, such as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) or the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE), However, a more comprehensive assessment is needed in order to test other areas and student skills that are not included in current assessments.<br/><br/>The standardized exam in this project aims to a) be appropriate for assessing both traditional and non-traditional courses; b) include problems of different formats (e.g. free response, multiple choice, computer-based) and of different problem types (e.g. conceptual, multi-step, ranking tasks, context-rich problems, and graphing problems), choosing the format and problem type based on what is being assessed; c) be based on physics education research; d) encompass topics covered in a two-semester physics course. Such an exam is being piloted in this project.<br/><br/>Broader impacts: Physics courses are taught in many formats. In addition to including more topics, the exam is including skills, such as laboratory and modeling skills and critical thinking in the context of physics, that constitute a broader measure of student learning.
