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Re: data on typical FCI scores



brian whatcott looked at some of the data Richard Hake presented
..
the average effectiveness of a course in promoting conceptual
understanding is taken to be the average normalized gain <g>. The
latter is defined as the ratio of the actual average gain (%<post> -
%<pre>) to the maximum possible average gain (100 - %<pre>)....

(b) Traditional (T) courses ... average <g> for 14
courses (N = 2048) of 0.23 ± 0.04sd
...
(c) Interactive-engagement (IE) ... average <g> = 0.48 ± 0.14sd.

(d) Current IE methods need to be improved, since none of the IE
courses achieves <g> greater than 0.69.

and asked

Can anyone explain why the IE method, shown to be better,
is in need of improvement?

The g value that Richard uses is a measure of how much of an
improvement of conceptual understanding instruction has produced. It
looks at the gap between understanding at the start of the instruction
and a "perfect" conceptual understanding.
Richard's thorough investigation shows that the improvement from
traditional courses gets students, on average, only 20% of the way;
interactive-engagement instruction does a lot better, getting
students, on average, 50% of the way BUT that is ONLY 50% of the way
and the very best results were only 70% of the way. Richard is
saying: why can't we do better? it looks as though we are on the right
track but there's a long way to go.

I've heard that Priscilla Laws, at Dickerson College, does get much
better than 70% but which of us can replicate the Dickerson
environment?

Brian McInnes