Abstract of paper to be presented at AAPT Summer Meeting in San Antonio, TX, August 1999.

Link to the presentation slides (pdf-file).

Link to a paper on this topic.

Do They Stay Fixed*
Jonte Bernhard, Högskolan Dalarna, Dept. of Physics, Borlänge, S-78188 SWEDEN; 01146-23-778866; jbe@du.se

Do instructional strategies who achieve high gains on conceptual test such as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI)¹ or the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE)² produce a permanent change in students world view from "Aristotelian" to "Newtonian" or are the effects reported only temporary? At Högskolan Dalarna we have adapted a modified RealTime Physics³ approach in some of our introductory mechanics courses. Preservice teachers who took the FCI- and FMCE-tests as a follow test 5 semesters after their reformed physics course, did almost as well (71% FCI follow-test average) as the engineering students in the reformed mechanics course (73% FCI post-test average in 1997/98, 45% normalized gain). Our data and data by Francis et al ⁴ (they tested students 1-3 years after a course implementing "McDermott-tutorials"⁵) implies that curricula who actively engage the students, do appear to make a permanent change in students' conceptual framework.

*Supported in part by the Swedish National Board for Higher Education, Council for Renewal of Undergraduate Education.

1. D Hestenes, M Wells and G Swackhamer "Force Concept Inventory" Phys Teach 30, 159-165 (1992). The FCI-test was translated into Swedish by J Bernhard 1997.
2. R Thornton and D Sokoloff, Am J Phys, 66, 338-352 (1998). The FMCE-test was translated into Swedish by J Bernhard 1998.
3. D Sokoloff, R Thornton and P Laws. RealTime Physics, active learning laboratories. Wiley, New York, NY, USA (1998). P Laws, Proc Conf on Intro Physics Course, 125-136, Wiley, New York, 1997.
4. G Francis, J Adams and E Noonan, Phys. Teach. 36, 488-490 (1998).
5. L McDermott Tutorials in Introductory Physics (Prentice-Hall, 1998). L McDermott, S Vokos and P Shaffer in Redish E and Rigden J (Eds), AIP Conference Proceedings, 399, 1007-1018. New York, American Institute of Physics, 1997.