[Phys-L] Re: Spring question

[titus at MAILAPS.ORG (Aaron Titus)]

These kinds of questions are very "tricky" in that the question elicits
answers that we consider "misconceptions" though the answer given may
be due to the wording of the question itself and not what students
really know.

A few years ago, Melissa Dancy wrote an animated version of the FCI
where questions included animations. She found that for a number of
questions, students' responses were quite different on the animated
version. There are two possibilities that I can think of: (1) watching
an animation leads students to certain conclusions; (2) the animation
clarifies what the question is really asking.

I believe that the following question presented by John is one where
showing an animation would help clarify the question for students.
Alternatively, one could just try to make the question more clear by
saying something like, "If a block attached to an unstretched
vertically oriented spring is dropped from rest, what is the lowest
point the block reaches?"

I really think that you'd get more correct answers on the question
below if it was worded differently (maybe not the way I worded it
though) or if it included an animation. Often, students just don't
visualize what you are asking and lock in on a particular answer
because of the way the question is worded. I believe that this affects
the validity of concept tests more than physics ed researchers realize.

Aaron

On Dec 12, 2004, at 12:23 AM, John Clement wrote:

> If
> you ask them what is the maximum stretch of a spring after you hang a
> block
> on it, they will usually give you solution 1, but solution 2 is the
> appropriate answer.