Does transitioning to online classes mid-semester affect conceptual understanding?

TL;DR

This study investigates whether switching to online classes mid-semester during COVID-19 affects students' conceptual understanding in physics, finding no significant difference in gains compared to traditional classes.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the impact of mid-semester transition to online learning on conceptual physics understanding using the FCI assessment.

Findings

No significant difference in conceptual gains between online and traditional classes.

2020 grades are comparable to 2019 grades, indicating minimal impact.

Gender differences favoring females in conceptual gains are statistically significant.

Abstract

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) can be used as an assessment tool to measure conceptual gains in a cohort of students. The FCI uses a conceptions/"misconceptions" lens rather than a context dependent perspective, such as "knowledge-in-pieces". In this study it was given to first year students ($N=256$ students) pre- and post-mechanics lectures, at the University of Johannesburg. From these results we examine the effect of switching mid-semester from traditional classes to online classes, as imposed by the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa. Overall results indicate no appreciable difference of gain, when bench-marked against previous studies using this assessment tool. When compared with $2019$ grades, the $2020$ semester grades do not appear to be greatly affected. Furthermore, statistical analyses also indicate a gender difference in mean gains in favour of females at the $95\%$ significance level (for paired data, $N=48$).