An Item Response Curves Analysis of the Force Concept Inventory

Several years ago, we introduced the idea of item response curves (IRC), a simplistic form of item response theory (IRT), to the physics education research community as a way to examine item performance on diagnostic instruments such as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). We noted that a full-blown analysis using IRT would be a next logical step, which several authors have since taken. In this paper, we show that our simple approach not only yields similar conclusions in the analysis of the performance of items on the FCI to the more sophisticated and complex IRT analyses but also permits additional insights by characterizing both the correct and incorrect answer choices. Our IRC approach can be applied to a variety of multiple-choice assessments but, as applied to a carefully designed instrument such as the FCI, allows us to probe student understanding as a function of ability level through an examination of each answer choice. We imagine that physics teachers could use IRC analysis to identify prominent misconceptions and tailor their instruction to combat those misconceptions, fulfilling the FCI authors\u27 original intentions for its use. Furthermore, the IRC analysis can assist test designers to improve their assessments by identifying nonfunctioning distractors that can be replaced with distractors attractive to students at various ability levels

Preliminary Study of Impulse Momentum Diagrams.

In this paper, we present a new representation to help students learn about momentum, impulse and conservation of momentum. We call this representation an Impulse‐Momentum Diagram. We include a description of these diagrams as well as examples on how instructors can use them in the classroom. Next, we present preliminary quantitative and qualitative data on a study where students used these representations to learn the previous physics concepts. Our final analysis shows how students benefit from these representations

Comparing Experts and Novices in Solving Electrical Circuit Problems with the Help of Eye-tracking.

In order to help introductory physics students understand and learn to solve problems with circuits, we must first understand how they differ from experts. This preliminary study focuses on problem-solving dealing with electrical circuits. We investigate difficulties novices have with circuits and compare their work with those of experts. We incorporate the use of an eye-tracker to investigate any possible differences or similarities on how experts and novices solve electrical circuit problems. Our results show similarities in gaze patterns among all subjects on the components of the circuit. We further found that experts would look back at the circuit while solving the problem but not the novices. We also found differences in how they solve the problems. For example, experts simplified circuits when appropriate as opposed to novices who did not. They also had difficulties identifying when resistors are in parallel or in series and how to combine them

WebTOP: An X3D-Based, Web-Delivered, Interactive System for Optics Instruction

The Optics Project on the Web (WebTOP) is a 3D, interactive computer graphics system that visualizes optical phenomena. Its purpose is to help instructors teach and students learn about waves and optics. Originally, WebTOP was implemented using VRML, Java, and the External Authoring Interface, and required the use of the Microsoft Virtual Machine. This paper provides an introduction to a new version of WebTOP that uses X3D, Java, the Scene Access Interface, and the Sun Virtual Machine. The interface, modules, and implementation of this version are discussed