PERC 2013 Abstract Detail Page
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| Abstract Title: | Exploring pedagogical content knowledge of physics instructors and teaching assistants using Force Concept Inventory |
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| Abstract: | The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has been widely used to assess student understanding of introductory mechanics concepts by a variety of educators and physics education researchers. One reason for this extensive use is that many of the items on the FCI have strong distractor choices that correspond to students' alternate conceptions in mechanics. Instruction is unlikely to be effective if instructors do not know the common alternate conceptions of introductory physics students and explicitly take into account students' initial knowledge state in their instructional design. We used the FCI to evaluate the pedagogical content knowledge of both instructors and Teaching Assistants (TAs) of varying teaching experience. For each item on the FCI, the instructors and TAs were asked to identify which incorrect answer choice they believed would be most commonly selected by introductory physics students. We used the FCI pre-test and post-test data from a large population (~900) of introductory physics students to assess the pedagogical content knowledge of these educators. We will present these results. |
| Abstract Type: | Contributed Poster Presentation |
Author/Organizer Information | |
| Primary Contact: |
Alexandru Maries University of Pittsburgh 5813 Bartlett Street Pittsburgh, PA 15217 Phone: 2013125091 |
| Co-Author(s) and Co-Presenter(s) |
Chandralekha Singh, University of Pittsburgh |
