Physics educators may or may not be interested in a recent post "Re:
pre-to-post tests as measures of learning/teaching #2" [Hake (2008)].
The abstract reads:
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ABSTRACT: Among the thoughtful responses to my post "Re: pre-to-post
tests as measures of learning/teaching" were those of POD's Ed Nuhfer
and Chemed-L's Logan McCarty. Nuhfer implied that there are people
who proclaim multiple choice tests to be the standard for determining
quality of education, but I know of no one outside politics who's
stupid enough to make such an absurd proclamation. McCarty argued
that: (1) the highest form of learning that we achieve in
introductory courses is *skills* not facts or concepts; (2) pre/post
testing inevitably promotes "teaching to the test"; (3) he (Logan)
could employ traditional non-interactive teaching methods in such a
way that his students would do well on tests such the Force Concept
Inventory (FCI); (4) the FCI is "incredibly narrowly focused"; (5)
Newtonian concepts hinder students' understanding in non-Newtonian
areas; (6) "concepts" are at a lower level of Bloom's taxonomy than
"skills"; and (7) writing ability can't be tested with multiple
choice tests. I argue that McCarty is wrong on all 7 counts and has
therefore flunked his pretest ;-).
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REFERENCES
Hake, R.R. 2008. "Re: pre-to-post tests as measures of
learning/teaching #2," AERA-L post of 31 Jan 2008 16:21:15-0800,
online on the OPEN AERA-L archives at <http://tinyurl.com/3cmgou>.
This is a slightly improved version of the post with the same title
transmitted to Chemed-L, PhysLrnR, and POD on 30 January 2008.