FCI post-test comparison: Cuesta College (SLO/NC campuses) versus UC-Davis

Students at both North County (Paso Robles) and San Luis Obispo campuses of Cuesta College (San Luis Obispo, CA) and the University of California at Davis were administered the Force Concept Inventory (Hestenes, Wells, and Swackhamer, 1992) during the last week of instruction, in order to follow up on the pre-test results from the first week of instruction (which showed no statistical difference between pre-test scores between NC and SLO campus students, and between these Cuesta students (pooled together into one population) and UC-Davis students).

The post-test FCI results of NC and SLO campus students can be compared to each other.

     Cuesta College    Cuesta College    
     Physics 205A      Physics 205A
     Fall Semester     Fall Semester
     2009 NC           2009 SLO
N    13 students*      43 students*
low   8                 3
mean 18.5 +/- 6.9      13.2 +/- 5.7
high 26                28

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

Note the higher mean score for NC campus students over SLO campus students; a "Student" t-test of the null hypothesis results in p = 0.0077, thus there is a highly significant difference between NC and SLO campuses of Cuesta College.

The post-test FCI results of NC campus students and SLO campus students can then be compared separately with UC-Davis students. First the NC students are compared with UC-Davis students:

     Cuesta College    UC-Davis
     Physics 205A      Physics 7B
     Fall Semester     Summer Session II
     2009              2002
N    12 students       76 students
low   8                 3
mean 18.5 +/- 6.9      12.9 +/- 5.5
high 26                26

A "Student" t-test of the null hypothesis results in p = 0.0017, thus there is a highly significant difference between NC campus and UC-Davis FCI post-test scores.

The pre- to post-test gain for NC campus students for this semester at Cuesta College is:

Physics 205A Fall Semester 2009 section 72177
<initial%> = 38% +/- 19% (N = 17)
  <final%> = 62% +/- 23% (N = 13)
       <g> = 0.37 +/- 0.23 (matched-pairs); 0.38 (class-wise)

In contrast to the SLO campus students (results below), the NC campus Hake gain is much higher than historical previous semester's results at Cuesta College in classes that have used think-(pair)-share methods (0.21-0.33), as well as radically restructured discussion/laboratory courses at UC-Davis (0.16), and conventional lecture-centric calculus-based introductory physics at Cuesta College (0.14-0.16), as discussed in previous postings on this blog. (Note that Hake gains of 0.00-0.30 are considered low-gain, 0.30-0.70 are medium-gain, and 0.70-1.00 are high-gain.)

Next the SLO campus students are compared with UC-Davis students:

     Cuesta College    UC-Davis
     Physics 205A      Physics 7B
     Fall Semester     Summer Session II
     2009              2002
N    43 students       76 students
low   3                 3
mean 13.2 +/- 5.7      12.9 +/- 5.5
high 28                26

A "Student" t-test of the null hypothesis results in p = 0.77, thus there is no significant difference between SLO campus and UC-Davis FCI post-test scores.

The pre- to post-test gain for SLO campus students for this semester at Cuesta College is:

Physics 205A Fall Semester 2009 sections 70854, 70855
<initial%> = 32% +/- 15% (N = 58)
  <final%> = 44% +/- 19% (N = 43)
       <g> = 0.17 +/- 0.24 (matched-pairs); 0.18 (class-wise)

This Hake gain for the SLO campus students is much lower than other think-(pair)-share courses at Cuesta College, but at least comparable to the radically restructured discussion/laboratory courses at UC-Davis, and conventional lecture-centric calculus-based introductory physics at Cuesta College.

Previous FCI results for think-(pair)-share Physics 205A classes:

• Cuesta College versus UC-Davis, Fall semester 2009 pre-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.