FCI pre-test comparison: Cuesta College versus UC-Davis (fall semester 2011)

Students at both Cuesta College (San Luis Obispo, CA) and the University of California at Davis were administered the 30-question Force Concept Inventory (Doug Hestenes, et al.) during the first week of instruction.

	Cuesta College Physics 205A Fall semester 2011	UC-Davis Physics 7B Summer session II 2002
N	57 students*	76 students*
low	2	2
mean	9.0 +/- 5.4	9.1 +/- 4.3
high	29	27

*Excludes students with negative informed consent forms (*.pdf)

Student's t-test of the null hypothesis results in p = 0.67 (t = 0.427, sdev = 4.57, degrees of freedom = 131), thus there is no significant difference between Cuesta College and UC-Davis FCI pre-test scores.

Later this semester (fall 2011), a comparison will be made between Cuesta College and UC-Davis FCI post-tests, along with their pre- to post-test gains.

D. Hestenes, M. Wells, and G. Swackhamer, Arizona State University, "Force Concept Inventory," Phys. Teach. 30, 141-158 (1992).
Development of the FCI, a 30-question survey of basic Newtonian mechanics concepts.

Previous FCI results:

• Cuesta College versus UC-Davis, fall semester 2009 pre-tests and post-tests.
  
• Cuesta College versus UC-Davis, spring semester 2009 pre-tests and post-tests.
  
• Cuesta College versus UC-Davis, fall semester 2008 pre-tests and post-tests.
• Cuesta College versus UC-Davis, spring semester 2008 pre-tests and post-tests.
• Cuesta College versus UC-Davis, fall semester 2007 pre-tests and post-tests.