Probing the effect on student conceptual understanding due to a forced mid-semester transition to online teaching

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) can be used as an assessment tool to measure conceptual gains in a cohort of students. FCI uses conceptions/"misconceptions" lens rather than context dependent perspective, such "knowledge-in-pieces". In this study it was given first year students ($N=256$ students) pre- and post-mechanics lectures, at the University Johannesburg. From these results we examine effect switching mid-semester from traditional classes online classes, imposed by COVID-19 lockdown South Africa. Overall indicate no appreciable difference gain, when bench-marked against previous studies using tool. When compared with $2019$ grades, $2020$ semester grades do not appear greatly affected. Furthermore, statistical analyses also gender mean favour females $95\%$ significance level (for paired data, $N=48$).