Re: data on typical FCI scores

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

The fact that Hestenes thought that he was defining a minimum acceptable
level does not make it so.  The FCI, as I understand it, was never
validated by any acceptable procedure, so the notion that a 70% FCI
score is 70% of what's acceptable is unsupportable.
                                Regards,
                                        Jack

Adam was by constitution and proclivity a scientist; I was the same, and
we loved to call ourselves by that great name...Our first memorable
scientific discovery was the law that water and like fluids run downhill,
not up.
                          Mark Twain, <Extract from Eve's Autobiography>

On Thu, 6 Jan 2000, Richard Hake wrote:

> In his 1/7/2000 Phys-L post "Re: data on typical FCI scores," Brian
> Whatcott asks:
>
> "Can anyone explain why the IE   (Interactive Engagement)    method,
> shown to be better     (in ref. 1)    [than the Traditional (T)
> method]    is in need of improvement?   (as stated in Hake's 1/5/99
> post 'Re: data on typical FCI scores')"
>
> To appreciate this one has to take a look at the FCI test - it is NOT
> the Cambridge Tripos Exam!  According to Hestenes(2) "the FCI was
> developed to assess the effectiveness of mechanics courses in meeting
> a MINIMAL PERFORMANCE STANDARD: to teach students to reliably
> discriminate between the applicability of scientific concepts and
> naive alternatives in common physical situations."[Our CAPS.]
>
> It has been my experience that many traditional university physics
> instructors regard the FCI questions as so laughably simple and
> obvious that their introductory-course students would easily score
> close to 100%.
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