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Affiliation(s)

Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA

ABSTRACT

We report on the free-response (FR) component of a large-scale assessment at a large university. It has become common to use conceptual inventories not just for the assessment of students’ understanding for research purposes, but for the assessment of courses, curricula, and pedagogies. However, it can be argued that these instruments are insufficient. They are not comprehensive and are limited in their assessment of skills beyond conceptual understanding, such as mathematical and laboratory skills, thinking skills, and explanatory ability. In large classes, these skills often go unassessed, partially due to the predominance of multiple-choice (MC) assessment. The MC assessment format limits an instructor’s ability to assess more complex problem solving skills, thought processes, students’ explanatory abilities and writing skills. This raises the question as to whether or not, students even develop these skills, if they are not assessed. We explored this and the related issues through the administration of a set of FR pre- and post- tests across all of our introductory courses, both calculus- and algebra- based, as part of a large-scale assessment project over a number of years. The project was designed to: (1) assess the introduction of research-based materials into the labs and recitations; and (2) assess the different pedagogical methods used in the lectures and labs. In this paper, we report on the results of the FR pre- and post- testing in the context of electricity and magnetism. We present both quantitative and qualitative results from the FR assessment. The results reveal a more comprehensive picture of our students’ skills and abilities than from conceptual inventories alone, providing, in particular, information on thinking skills, laboratory skills, math skills, and explanatory ability not available from conceptual inventories and emphasizing the advantages of the use of multiple forms of assessment in the comparison of different pedagogies and in course and program assessment. We give examples of the types of problems administered, the skills assessed, the analysis of the solutions qualitatively and quantitatively, the results, and directions for future research.

KEYWORDS

large-scale assessment, inquiry, thinking skills, program assessment

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