Validation of a Conceptual Assessment Tool in E&M II

TL;DR

This paper introduces the CURrENT, a new assessment tool designed to evaluate student understanding in upper-division electrodynamics, providing insights into student difficulties and helping measure pedagogical effectiveness.

Contribution

The paper presents the development and preliminary validation of the CURrENT assessment tool for upper-division electrodynamics courses.

Findings

Expert validation supports content validity.

Inter-rater reliability is high.

Preliminary test statistics indicate reliability.

Abstract

As part of an ongoing project to investigate student learning in upper-division electrodynamics (E&M II), the PER research group at the University of Colorado Boulder has developed a tool to assess student conceptual understanding: the CURrENT (Colorado UppeR-division ElectrodyNamics Test). The result is an open-ended post-test diagnostic with 6 multi-part questions, an optional 3-question pretest, and an accompanying grading rubric. This instrument is motivated in part by our faculty-consensus learning goals, and is intended to help measure the effectiveness of transformed pedagogy. In addition, it provides insights into student thinking and student difficulties in the covered topical areas. In this paper, we present preliminary measures of the validity and reliability of the instrument and scoring rubric. These include expert validation and student interviews, inter-rater reliability measures, and classical test statistics.