Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 2, 020102 (2006) [14 pages]Evaluating multiple-choice exams in large introductory physics courses
Michael Scott, Tim Stelzer, and Gary Gladding Received 11 May 2005; published 28 July 2006 The reliability and validity of professionally written multiple-choice exams have been extensively studied for exams such as the SAT, graduate record examination, and the force concept inventory. Much of the success of these multiple-choice exams is attributed to the careful construction of each question, as well as each response. In this study, the reliability and validity of scores from multiple-choice exams written for and administered in the large introductory physics courses at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign were investigated. The reliability of exam scores over the course of a semester results in approximately a 3% uncertainty in students’ total semester exam score. This semester test score uncertainty yields an uncertainty in the students’ assigned letter grade that is less than 1 / 3 of a letter grade. To study the validity of exam scores, a subset of students were ranked independently based on their multiple-choice score, graded explanations, and student interviews. The ranking of these students based on their multiple-choice score was found to be consistent with the ranking assigned by physics instructors based on the students’ written explanations ( r>0.94 at the 95% confidence level) and oral interviews (r=0.94−0.09+0.06) . ©2006 The American Physical Society
URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.2.020102 [ Abstract | Previous article | Next article | Issue 2 ] |
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