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FCI Summary



There have been some recent postings on both PhysLrnR and Phys-L with
regard to tests of conceptual understanding:

A. In a PhysLrnR post of 10/17/98, Pal Fekete wrote: (1) "Many of us
have know about the Thornton et al. FCI for many years.... (2) are there
any other conceptual tests out there in any of the other fields of
physics?

B. In a Phys-L post of 9/2/98 titled "FCI available?," James McLean
wrote: "Is there someplace that I can get a copy of David Hestene's
Force Concept Inventory?=20

C. In a 9/3/98 Phys-L posting title "FCI Summary," James McLean
summarizes responses he received regarding the locations of the FCI:

1. "The original: Hestenes, D., Wells, M., and Swackhamer, G. (March
1992). Force concept inventory. The Physics Teacher, 30, 141-158."

2. "A 'slightly different version': On disk as a PDF file accompanying
Eric Mazur's "Peer Instruction."

3. "A PDF version at
<http://modeling.la.asu.edu/modeling/R&E/Research.html>,
requires obtaining a password from Larry Dukerich <dukerich@asu.edu>."

4. "Online: purcell.phy.nau.edu where it is called the Physics Concepts
PreTest at the wish of Hestenes."

5. "It may be on the Mazur Group home page
<http://galileo.harvard.edu/mazur-www/index.html>."


Here are some clarifications and answers with regard to the above
postings:

A1. The FCI is NOT due to Thornton, but to Hestenes et al. (see "C1"
above). Pal may be thinking of the "Force Motion Concept Evaluation"
(FMCE) (ref. 1) due to Thornton and Sokoloff.

A2. For a few tests other than the FCI and FMCE see ref. 2 - 6 and also
<http://www.aapt.org/> under links at "Physical Science Resource
Center"(PSRC)/Evaluation Instruments/ Conceptual Learning Assessments.

C2. The "slightly different version" is the 1995 FCI revision due to
Halloun, Hake, Hestenes, Mosca, and Hestenes. Unfortunately the
authorship is not made clear in Mazur's "Peer Instruction." As indicated
in ref. 7, "The use of a revised....(1995)..... version of the FCI with
fewer ambiguities and a smaller likelihood of false positives has had
little impact on <g> as measured at Indiana and Harvard Universities."=20
And as indicated in ref. 8: "Comparisons of gains attained with the
revised FCI on courses with a long history of FCI pre/post testing at
Harvard and Indiana University suggest that pretest averages may tend to
be somewhat lower with the revised FCI (see courses EM-95C and IU95F of
Table I), but that average normalized gain <g> values are not much
affected." That pre-test averages tend to be lower for the 1995 revised
FCI has also been observed by Frank Griffin of the Univ. of Akron and by
Leslie Dickie of John Abbott College(see Griffin's PhysLrnR post "Re
FCI" of 9/18/97).

C3. The pdf version of the FCI at ASU is the 1995 revised version.

C4. The on-line FCI at Northern Arizona University is (Dan McIsaac -
please correct me if I'm wrong) only for NAU students taking specific
physics courses and is password protected.

C5. According to a 9/30/98 message I received from Catherine Crouch, the
1995 revised version of the FCI IS available at the Harvard Galileo site
<http://galileo.harvard.edu/> (not the address relayed by McLean) but
requires "faculty cookies" and downloading of the complete pdf version
of "Peer Instruction: A Users' Manual."

Some advice on the administration of the FCI is given in refs. 48 and 49
of ref. 7.


Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<hake@ix.netcom.com>
<http://carini.physics.indiana.edu/SDI/>



REFERENCES
1. (a) R.K. Thornton and D.R. Sokoloff, "Assessing student learning of
Newton=92s laws : The Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation and the
Evaluation of Active Learning Laboratory and Lecture Curricula, Am. J.
Phys. 66, 338-351 (1998).

2. C.J. Hieggelke, D. Maloney, T. O=92Kuma, and A. Van Heuvelen, "Electri=
c
and Magnetic Concept Inventory," AAPT Announcer 26(2), 80 (1996); T.L.
O'Kuma, C.J. Hieggelke, and D. Maloney, "Developing Conceptual Surveys
in Electricity and Magnetism, AAPT Announcer 28(2), 81 (1998). =20

3. P.V. Engelhardt and R.J. Beichner, "Determining and Interpreting
Students=92 Concepts of Resistive Electric Circuits," AAPT Announcer
26(2), 80-81 (1996).

4. R.J. Beichner, =93Testing student interpretation of kinematics graphs,=
=94
Am. J. Phys. 62, 750 (1994).

5. J. Marx, "Diagnostic Exam for Introductory Undergraduate Electricity
and Magnetism" (DEEM) (see Marx's PhysLrnR post "E&M animations and
educational literature" of 10/16/98). Marx can be contacted at
<marxj2@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>.=20

6. M. Zeilik, C. Schau, and N. Mattern, "Misconceptions and Their
Change in University-Level Astronomy Courses," Phys. Teach. 36, 104
(1998). According to Zeilik's PhysLrnR post of 10/17/98, his Astronomy
Diagnostic Test is now undergoing revisions. Zeilik can be contacted at
<MZeilik@aol.com>.

7. R.R. Hake, =93Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A
six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory
physics courses,=94 Am. J. Phys. 66, 64 (1998) and on the Web at
<http://carini.physics.indiana.edu/SDI/>.

8. R.R. Hake, "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory mechanics
courses," submitted to the potential new =93Journal of Physics Education
Research=EE on 6/19/98 and on the Web at the above addresses.