Education research: FCI gains (UC-Davis)

For an overview of how <g> quantifies the gains in learning Newtonian mechanics concepts (Hake), as measured by the Force Concept Inventory (Hestenes et al.), see the previous post: Education research: FCI gains (Cuesta College).

Physics 7B is the second quarter (fluid dynamics, electric circuits, kinematics, Newton's laws, rotational dynamics, momentum) of a reformed algebra-based interactive engagement course in introductory physics at the University of California, Davis. These students took the FCI during the first lab, and again during the last lab meeting during the second summer session in 2002:

Physics 7B Summer Session II 2002 sections 21-23
         N = 76
<initial%> = 30% +/- 13%
  <final%> = 41% +/- 18%
       <g> = 0.16

Note that the class averages for both the initial and final FCI scores at UC-Davis are lower than at Cuesta College (41%-44%, and 49%-53% respectively), which would be expected from the different student populations at each institution (pre-medical/dental/veterinary students in algebra-based physics at UC-Davis; pre-engineering students in calculus-based physics at Cuesta College).

In contrast, the gains for either student populations are identical (0.16 for UC-Davis; 0.14-0.16 for Cuesta College), which classifies them both as "low-g" courses by Hake. This is particularly interesting for the Physics 7B course at UC-Davis, as Hake found that this type of course (interactive engagement) resulted in a <g> of 0.48 +/- 0.14 for the 4,832 students surveyed in his study. However, a summer session at UC-Davis is a quarter (10 week) course, of which only 40% of the course deals with translational kinematics and Newton's laws. As a summer session course compresses this timeline into five weeks, this means that UC-Davis students would only have two weeks during the summer session to construct, master, and consolidate a Newtonian understanding of mechanics, which apparently is not enough time, even in an interactive engagement environment.

What will be interesting is the forthcoming results from studying Physics 5A students at Cuesta College, starting Fall 2007, which is a more closely aligned population with UC-Davis Physics 7B students. Physics 5B is a traditional algebra-based introductory physics course, planned to be extensively augmented with interactive engagement learning techniques over the next two years.