Polarising questions in the Force Concept Inventory

Conference paper

Chrysostomou, Anna, Carleschi, Emanuela, Cornell, Alan and Naylor, Wade. (2021). Polarising questions in the Force Concept Inventory. The 65th Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Physics. Virtual Conference 22 - 30 Jul 2021 South Africa: Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Physics. pp. 412-417
AuthorsChrysostomou, Anna, Carleschi, Emanuela, Cornell, Alan and Naylor, Wade
TypeConference paper
Abstract

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is a well-established physics education assessment tool used to evaluate students' comprehension of elementary mechanics principles. While it can be used to analyse the effectiveness of instruction if deployed as a pre- and post-test, we utilise the FCI here as pre-test only, to extract insights into first-year students' (mis)conceptions of Newtonian mechanics as they enter university. In this preliminary study, we tested 353 students enrolled at the University of Johannesburg in 2021, across six introductory physics courses. We focus on their responses to six "polarising" questions, for which the presence of a correct and a mostly-correct answer allows for a clear demonstration of persistent misconceptions.

KeywordsForce Concept Inventory; FCI
Year01 Jan 2021
PublisherAnnual Conference of the South African Institute of Physics
Web address (URL)https://events.saip.org.za/event/206/
Open accessPublished as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
Research or scholarlyResearch
Publisher's version
License
All rights reserved
File Access Level
Open
Page range412-417
ISBN978-0-620-97693-0
Web address (URL) of conference proceedingshttps://events.saip.org.za/event/206/page/446-the-proceedings-of-saip2021
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Print30 Jul 2021
Publication process dates
Accepted20 Jul 2021
Deposited05 Mar 2024
Additional information

© 2021 by the South African Institute of Physics. All rights reserved.

Place of publicationSouth Africa
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