학술논문

Tale of Two Curricula: The Performance of 2000 Students in Introductory Electromagnetism
Document Type
Journal Articles
Reports - Evaluative
Source
Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research. Jul-Dec 2009 5(2):020105.
Subject
Research Universities
Calculus
Introductory Courses
Predictor Variables
Pretests Posttests
Intermode Differences
Comparative Testing
Norm Referenced Tests
Physics
Teaching Methods
Achievement Tests
Language
English
ISSN
1554-9178
Abstract
The performance of over 2000 students in introductory calculus-based electromagnetism (E&M) courses at four large research universities was measured using the Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA). Two different curricula were used at these universities: a traditional E&M curriculum and the Matter & Interactions (M&I) curriculum. At each university, postinstruction BEMA test averages were significantly higher for the M&I curriculum than for the traditional curriculum. The differences in post-test averages cannot be explained by differences in variables such as preinstruction BEMA scores, grade point average, or SAT Reasoning Test (SAT) scores. BEMA performance on categories of items organized by subtopic was also compared at one of the universities; M&I averages were significantly higher in each topic. The results suggest that the M&I curriculum is more effective than the traditional curriculum at teaching E&M concepts to students, possibly because the learning progression in M&I reorganizes and augments the traditional sequence of topics, for example, by increasing early emphasis on the vector field concept and by emphasizing the effects of fields on matter at the microscopic level. (Contains 1 table and 11 figures.)