Longitudinal study of student conceptual understanding in electricity and magnetism
نویسنده
چکیده
We have investigated the long-term effect of student-centered instruction at the freshman level on juniors’ performance on a conceptual survey of Electricity and Magnetism E&M . We measured student performance on a research-based conceptual instrument—the Brief Electricity & Magnetism Assessment BEMA –over a period of 8 semesters 2004–2007 . Concurrently, we introduced the University of Washington’s Tutorials in Introductory Physics as part of our standard freshman curriculum. Freshmen took the BEMA before and after this Tutorial-based introductory course, and juniors took it after completion of their traditional junior-level E&M I and E&M II courses. We find that, on average, individual BEMA scores do not change significantly after completion of the introductory course—neither from the freshman to the junior year, nor from upperdivision E&M I to E&M II. However, we find that juniors who had completed a non-Tutorial freshman course scored significantly lower on the post-upper-division BEMA than those who had completed the reformed freshman course—indicating a long-term positive impact of freshman Tutorials on conceptual understanding.
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