Polarising questions in the Force Concept Inventory

2021/11/11 by Anna Chrysostomou, Emanuela Carleschi, Chrysostomou, Anna +5
Social Sciences · #FOS: Physical sciences #Innovative Teaching Methods #Physics Education (physics.ed-ph) #Science Education and Pedagogy

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2111.06074

openalex publication_date 2021/11/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is a well-established physics education assessment tool used to evaluate students' comprehension of elementary mechanics principles. While it can be used to analyse the effectiveness of instruction if deployed as a pre- and post-test, we utilise the FCI here as pre-test only, to extract insights into first-year students' (mis)conceptions of Newtonian mechanics as they enter university. In this preliminary study, we tested 353 students enrolled at the University of Johannesburg in 2021, across six introductory physics courses. We focus on their responses to six "polarising" questions, for which the presence of a correct and a mostly-correct answer allows for a clear demonstration of persistent misconceptions.

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