Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Constructivism



In a Phys-L posting of 6/8/97 titled =93Re: Contructivism,=94 Ludwig
Kowalski comments that Donald Simanek=92s earlier discussion on this topi=
c
assumes that =93we all know what constructivism is in terms of day-to-day
methodologies.....I would suggest that people who practice contructivism
describe what they actually do, or not do, and why they think their
approaches are better.=94

A survey (1, 2) of Force Concept Inventory and Mechanics Baseline test
results on 62 courses with total enrollment of 6542 students strongly
suggests that interactive-engagement (IE) methods (consistent with the
constuctivist standpoint and fully described in the literature) can
increase introductory-mechanics-course effectiveness in promoting both
conceptual understanding and problem solving ability well beyond that
achieved by traditional methods. It is shown that it is extremely
unlikely that random or systematic errors (e.g., Hawthorne effect,
question ambiguities, teaching to the test, the fraction of time spent
on mechanics, posttest motivation of students) have a significant effect
on the results.

Articles #1 and #2 are now on the Web at
<http://carini.physics.indiana.edu/SDI/> in the form of Adobe Acrobat
"portable document files" (.pdf). If you wish to download them you will
need to import the free Adobe Acrobat 3.0 "Reader." There may be some
difficulty if an earlier version such as 2.1 is used. If you have any
trouble please let me know.


References
1. R.R. Hake, "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A
six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory
physics courses," Am. J. Phys., in press.

2. R.R. Hake, "Interactive-engagement methods in introductory mechanics
courses," submitted on 5/16/97 to the potential new "Journal of Physics
Education Research."


Richard Hake <hake@ix.netcom.com>
Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street
Woodland Hills, CA 91367