2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Analysis of Student Understanding of Force Using the Dynamics Concept Inventory, Think-Alouds and Confusion Matrices

Presented at Assessing Conceptual Thinking about Engineering Mechanics

Concept inventories have been used to measure student understanding of different concepts in many different courses. They are designed to have distractors to help those evaluating student responses identify where there may be misconceptions. But it still may be difficult to determine a student’s thought process at the time they answered the question.
In this study we use a combination of Think-Alouds and Confusion Matrices to evaluate student responses to questions regarding Force applied to particles and rigid bodies in the Dynamics Concept Inventory. A Think-Aloud is a recording of a student expressing their thoughts aloud while taking an exam. A confusion matrix is a 2x2 matrix with column headings scoring Student Oral Reasoning as correct or incorrect and row headings scoring Question Outcome as correct or incorrect. It is expected to illuminate the influence of luck versus true understanding.
Preliminary Analysis indicates students have a strong understanding how forces effect particle motion before and after a dynamics class, but they are more challenged when thinking about rigid bodies.

Authors

Dr. Julian Ly Davis http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4109-3904 University of Southern Indiana [biography]

Jul Davis is an Associate Professor of Engineering at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville, Indiana. He received his PhD in 2007 from Virginia Tech in Engineering Mechanics where he studied the vestibular organs in the inner ear using finite element models and vibration analyses. After graduating, he spent a semester teaching at a local community college and then two years at University of Massachusetts (Amherst) studying the biomechanics of biting in bats and monkeys, also using finite element modeling techniques. In 2010, he started his career teaching in all areas of mechanical engineering at the University of Southern Indiana. He loves teaching all of the basic mechanics courses, and of course his Vibrations and Finite Element Analysis courses.
Dr. Andrew Jason Hill University of Southern Indiana [biography]

Jason Hill is an associate professor and director of civil engineering at the University of Southern Indiana. He holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in civil engineering from Tennessee Technological University. His research interests include rainfall-runoff modeling and river restoration.

Download paper (2.05 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session