Re: Homework (Was Measure of student understanding)

[John Clement <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

The direct answer to this question is that we (really I) don't know.  The
use of reformed pedagogy is too small and the number of students who go into
technical fields from reformed courses is too probably too small to be able
to find a correlation.  The only way to be able to answer this question is
to have enough reformed courses so that we have adequate statistics.

There is some indirect evidence that it may be effective.  Physics
professors score high on the FCI/FMCE so we know that a high score is
ultimately desirable.  The MPEX attitude survey generally goes down in all
courses except for workshop style reformed courses.  This test scores
attitudes against expert attitudes such as physics professors, so workshop
courses promote expert attitudes.  Shayer&Adey's curricula which is a twin
to many reformed curricula dramatically increases scores on the conventional
national exams in England.  High scores on these exams are necessary for
entry into advanced professional careers.  Lawson has shown that high
thinking skill scores are a much better predictor for high biology grades
than even 3 years of HS biology.  Reformed pedagogy does many things that
have been capable of pushing up thinking skills.  Surveys of national
science test scores in precollege classes show that pedagogy similar to PER
improves the scores.

Even if we have a significant number of PER graduates in advanced
professions, will an evaluation of the effectiveness of the pedagogy be
made?  It is the old chicken and egg problem.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX



> So back to Jack's specific and my implied question:  Is there any
> predictive
> power in the FCI/FCME or other such diagnostic tool with regards
> to success
> as professional scientists or engineers that would encourage us to move
> forward toward a fully reformed curriculum for students in these fields?
>
> Rick