Traditional problem-based exams are not efficient instruments for assessing the "structure" of physics students' conceptual knowledge or for providing diagnostically detailed feedback to students and teachers. We present the Free Term Entry task, a candidate assessment instrument for exploring the connections between concepts in a student's understanding of a subject. In this task, a student is given a general topic area and asked to respond with as many terms from the topic area as possible in a given time; the "thinking time" between each term-entry event is recorded along with the response terms. The task was given to students from two different introductory physics classes. Response term thinking times were found to correlate with the strength of the association between two concepts. In addition, sets of thinking times from the task show distinct, characteristic patterns which might prove valuable for student assessment. We propose a quantitative dynamical model named the Matrix Walk Model which is able to match many aspects of the observed data. One particular feature of the data -- a distinct "spike" superimposed on the otherwise log-normal distribution of most thinking time sets -- has not been fit. The spike, other patterns observed in the data, and the proposed phenomenological model could all benefit from a grounding in cognitive theory.
A Framework for Understanding the Impact of Integrating Conceptual and Quantitative Reasoning in a Quantum Optics Tutorial on Students' Conceptual Understanding
University of Cincinnati（辛辛那提大学）；Community College of Allegheny County（阿勒格尼县社区学院）；University of Pittsburgh（匹兹堡大学）
There is some evidence that conceptual inquiry-based introductory physics lab curricula, such as RealTime Physics, may improve students' understanding of physics concepts. Thus, these curricula may be attractive for instructors who seek to transform their physics labs to improve student learning. However, the impact of conceptual inquiry-based lab instruction on students' attitudes and beliefs about experimental physics, as measured by the E-CLASS survey, is not yet fully understood. We present data from three curricular approaches over four semesters ($n=701$). We saw no change in E-CLASS sco…
Student learning in upper division thermal physics has not been studied to the same extent as in other courses like electromagnetism and quantum mechanics. Studies addressing reasoning and learning at the graduate level are even more limited. In this study, we conducted think-aloud interviews with eight graduate students involving questions centered around a set of entropy related conceptual tasks, two of which are similar to tasks presented to undergraduates in other studies. We discuss patterns in student reasoning on each question then discuss themes that appeared across questions. We ident…
We discuss the development and validation of a conceptual multiple-choice survey instrument called the Survey of Thermodynamic Processes and First and Second Laws (STPFaSL) suitable for introductory physics courses. The survey instrument uses common student difficulties with these concepts as resources in that the incorrect answers to the multiple-choice questions were guided by them. After the development and validation of the survey instrument, the final version was administered at six different institutions. It was administered to introductory physics students in various traditionally taugh…
We discuss research involving the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) to evaluate one aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge of teaching assistants (TAs): the knowledge of introductory students' alternate conceptions in electricity and magnetism as revealed by the CSEM. For each item on the CSEM, the TAs were asked to (1) identify the most common incorrect answer choice of introductory physics students and (2) predict the percentage of introductory students who would answer the question correctly in a post-test. Then, we used the CSEM post-test data from approximately 40…
Assessing Student Expertise in Introductory Physics with Isomorphic Problems, Part II: Effect of Some Potential Factors on Problem Solving and Transfer
Measuring student understanding in quantum computing: Development and validation of the Quantum Computing Conceptual Survey
California State University San Marcos（圣马科斯加州州立大学）；George Mason University（乔治梅森大学）；University of Colorado Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校）；California State University Fullerton（富尔顿加州州立大学）
Ishimoto, Davenport, and Wittmann have previously reported analyses of data from student responses to the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE), in which they used item response curves (IRCs) to make claims about American and Japanese students' relative likelihood to choose certain incorrect responses to some questions. We have used an independent data set of over 6,500 American students' responses to the FMCE to generate IRCs to test their claims. Converting the IRCs to vectors, we used dot product analysis to compare each response item quantitatively. For most questions, our analyses…
Exploring Generative AI assisted feedback writing for students' written responses to a physics conceptual question with prompt engineering and few-shot learning
Instruction is unlikely to be effective if instructors do not know the common alternate conceptions of introductory physics students and explicitly take into account common student difficulties in their instructional design. Here, we discuss research involving the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) to evaluate one aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge of teaching assistants (TAs): knowledge of introductory students' alternate conceptions in electricity and magnetism as revealed by the CSEM. For each item on the CSEM, the TAs were asked to identify the most common incor…
Newton's third law is one of the most important concepts learned early in introductory mechanics courses; however, ample studies have documented a wide range of students' misconceptions and fragmented understandings of this concept that are difficult to change through traditional instruction. This research develops a conceptual framework model to investigate students' understanding of Newton's third law through the knowledge integration perspective. The conceptual framework is established with a central idea emphasizing forces as the outcomes of an interaction instead of using the common actio…
We developed and validated a conceptual survey that focuses on the formalism and postulates of quantum mechanics covered in upper-level undergraduate quantum mechanics courses. The concepts included in the Quantum Mechanics Formalism and Postulate Survey (QMFPS) focus on Dirac notation, the Hilbert space, state vectors, physical observables and their corresponding Hermitian operators, compatible and incompatible observables, quantum measurement, time-dependence of quantum states and expectation values, and spin angular momenta. Here we describe the validation and administration of the survey, …
