• Open Access

Longitudinal study of student conceptual understanding in electricity and magnetism

S. J. Pollock
Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 5, 020110 – Published 15 December 2009

Abstract

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 upper-division 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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  • Received 20 July 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.5.020110

This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Authors & Affiliations

S. J. Pollock

  • Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0390, USA

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Issue

Vol. 5, Iss. 2 — July - December 2009

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