dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaMeasuring and modeling physics students' conceptual knowledge structures through term association times
| Authors | Ian D. Beatty, William J. Gerace, Robert J. Dufresne |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0702111 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0702111 |
Abstract
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.
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"abstract": "Traditional problem-based exams are not efficient instruments for assessing\nthe \"structure\" of physics students\u0027 conceptual knowledge or for providing\ndiagnostically detailed feedback to students and teachers. We present the Free\nTerm Entry task, a candidate assessment instrument for exploring the\nconnections between concepts in a student\u0027s understanding of a subject. In this\ntask, a student is given a general topic area and asked to respond with as many\nterms from the topic area as possible in a given time; the \"thinking time\"\nbetween each term-entry event is recorded along with the response terms. The\ntask was given to students from two different introductory physics classes.\nResponse term thinking times were found to correlate with the strength of the\nassociation between two concepts. In addition, sets of thinking times from the\ntask show distinct, characteristic patterns which might prove valuable for\nstudent assessment. We propose a quantitative dynamical model named the Matrix\nWalk Model which is able to match many aspects of the observed data. One\nparticular feature of the data -- a distinct \"spike\" superimposed on the\notherwise log-normal distribution of most thinking time sets -- has not been\nfit. The spike, other patterns observed in the data, and the proposed\nphenomenological model could all benefit from a grounding in cognitive theory.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0702111",
"authors": [
"Ian D. Beatty",
"William J. Gerace",
"Robert J. Dufresne"
],
"categories": [
"physics.ed-ph"
],
"title": "Measuring and modeling physics students\u0027 conceptual knowledge structures through term association times",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0702111"
},
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