Publications
How much are my students learning? Using concept inventories for assessment
Abstract
Science and engineering professors stress the importance of fundamental concepts, yet the exams used to assess student performance often consist of problems to solve instead of conceptual questions to answer. How can we quantify students' conceptual understanding? One approach is to administer a standardized exam, called a concept inventory (CI), at the start and end of a course. Using examples from recent CI studies, this session will stimulate discussion about how to measure conceptual understanding in quantitative disciplines.
Session Goals:
- Demonstrate the use of conceptual assessment using examples from the Signals and Systems Concept Inventory (SSCI) project [1,2].
- Foster discussion of conceptual assessment across disciplines.
Session Activities:
This session consists of three parts. Part 1 will motivate the need for conceptual assessment and provide a very brief overview of the use of concept inventories in science and engineering courses. Part 2 will focus on the design of conceptual questions, using examples from the Signals and Systems Concept Inventory to illustrate important points. Part 3 will describe some key findings from the SSCI study, which includes data from over 1000 students [1,3]. In particular, the average pre/post gain results will be discussed and compared to results of a similar study done in physics. A study by Hake indicates that students in traditional Newtonian mechanics classes learn about a quarter of the concepts that they don't know at the start of the course [4]. Results of the SSCI study indicate that the average gain of students in traditional signals and systems lecture courses is comparable to the 25% gain seen in physics. In Hake's study, students interactive engagement physics courses showed substantially higher average gains. Preliminary results from the SSCI study also suggest that interactive engagement techniques significantly affect the gain of signals and systems students.
The session will include discussion questions and interactive exercises designed to encourage audience participation. For example, in Part 1 participants will be asked to share what types of pre/post and/or conceptual assessment are used in their disciplines. In the second part, participants will be given several questions from the SSCI to read and discuss in small groups. The selected questions focus on general mathematical concepts and should be accessible to broad audience. In part 3, participants will be challenged to create a conceptual question for one of the subjects they teach. For this exercise, participants will be organized into groups according to their academic disciplines.
Citations:
- K. E. Wage, J. R. Buck, C. H. G. Wright, and T. B. Welch, "The Signals and Systems Concept Inventory," IEEE Transactions on Education, vol. 48(3), pp. 448-461, August 2005.
- SSCI Website: http://signals-and-systems.org
- J. R. Buck and K. E. Wage, "Active and Cooperative Learning in Signal Processing Courses," IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vol. 22(2), pp. 76-81, March 2005.
- R. R. Hake, "Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses," Amer. J. Phys., vol. 66, no. 1, pp. 66-74, Jan. 1998.
This talk was presented at the 2006 Lilly East Conference on College and University Teaching, Newark, DE, April, 2006.