TY - GEN
T1 - A new approach for uncovering student resources with multiple-choice questions
AU - Weinlader, Nolan K.
AU - Kuo, Eric
AU - Rottman, Benjamin M.
AU - Nokes-Malach, Timothy J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, American Association of Physics Teachers. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - The traditional approach to studying student understanding presents a question and uses the student’s answer to make inferences about their knowledge. However, this method doesn’t capture the range of possible alternative ideas available to students. We use a new approach, asking students to generate a plausible explanation for every choice of a multiple-choice question, to capture a range of explanations that students can generate in answering physics questions. Asking 16 students to provide explanations in this way revealed alternative possibilities for student thinking that would not have been captured if they only provided one solution. The findings show two ways these alternatives can be productive for learning physics: (i) even students who ultimately chose the wrong answer could often generate the correct explanation and (ii) many incorrect explanations contained elements of correct physical reasoning. We discuss the instructional implications of this multiple-choice questioning approach and of students’ alternative ideas.
AB - The traditional approach to studying student understanding presents a question and uses the student’s answer to make inferences about their knowledge. However, this method doesn’t capture the range of possible alternative ideas available to students. We use a new approach, asking students to generate a plausible explanation for every choice of a multiple-choice question, to capture a range of explanations that students can generate in answering physics questions. Asking 16 students to provide explanations in this way revealed alternative possibilities for student thinking that would not have been captured if they only provided one solution. The findings show two ways these alternatives can be productive for learning physics: (i) even students who ultimately chose the wrong answer could often generate the correct explanation and (ii) many incorrect explanations contained elements of correct physical reasoning. We discuss the instructional implications of this multiple-choice questioning approach and of students’ alternative ideas.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092054301&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Weinlader
DO - 10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Weinlader
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85092054301
SN - 9781931024365
T3 - Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings
SP - 621
EP - 626
BT - Physics Education Research Conference, PERC 2019
A2 - Cao, Ying
A2 - Wolf, Steven
A2 - Bennett, Michael
PB - American Association of Physics Teachers
T2 - Physics Education Research Conference, PERC 2019
Y2 - 24 July 2019 through 25 July 2019
ER -