2010-11 Assessment of Student Learning Report
Submit completed report electronically to the Office of Academic Affairs
by June 1, 2011
* Note: If your department has any helpful rubrics, surveys, or other assessment instruments,
and you would like to share them with the entire faculty, please include them as an appendix with this report.
They will be posted on the “Assessment at Manchester College” website (follow link from
www.manchester.edu/OAA/faculty.htm).
Please, no .pdf files so that others may modify your tools to suit their own needs. Thank you!
Please assess the majors in your department. Core classes are being assessed through a different process.
List Department and Program being assessed: Physics & Enginering Science
Current Size of Major: 5/year
Current Size of Graduating Class: 2
List all student learning goals for the department/program. (These should be the broad student learning goals that are
embedded in your departmental mission that remain the same from year to year.)
Goal #1 Students will demonstrate improvement in conceptual understanding of the basic physical principles
underlying mechanics and energy conservation.
Goal #2 Students will demonstrate strong problem-solving skills using specified fundamental physical principles
(The specified fundamental physical principles consists of Newton’s Law of Motion, the Laws of
Thermodynamics, Maxwell’s Equations, the principle of energy, the behavior of atoms, nuclei, and
materials, and wave theory.).
Goal #3 Students will demonstrate the ability to write in accepted scientific writing styles.
I.
List 1-3 specific student learning goals in the program that were assessed during the 2010-11 academic
year. (These could either be student learning goals listed in Section I, or parts of one or more of those goals.)
Goal #1 Students will improve on the basic physical principles of mechanics and energy conservation during their
first course in the major.
Goal #2 Graduating students will exhibit mastery of the listed fundamental physical principles.
Goal #3 Students will exhibit knowledge of basic scientific writing skills.
II.
Describe the methods used during the 2010-11 academic year to assess student learning for each of the
goals identified in Section II. (Methods could be exams, projects, assignments, or other demonstrations of
student learning. A brief explanation of the criteria by which student learning was evaluated is helpful.)
Goal #1 Administration (pre- and post-testing) of Force Concept Inventory (FCI) to all General Physics I and
College Physics I students.
Goal #2 SCE Assessment of Major Examination. Exam scores will be determined by raw number of correct
responses rather than the method used by the physics GRE; a passing score will be above 50% correct.
Goal #3 Students wrote lab notebooks for the Advanced Lab course. We evaluated the notebooks using a rubric
which is attached to this report.
III.
Summarize the data that was collected. (A few sentences or bullet points. Examples or data sets may be
attached as an appendix.)
The standard method of grading the FCI is calculating the difference in post and pre test percentages divided by the pretest score. Using this method the General Physics class obtained a gain of 74.3% and the College Physics class obtained a
gain of 68%. To provide some context for these gains, a graph of the equivalent gains for previous General Physics class
is provided below.
Force Concept Inventory Gain
80
70
60
% Increase
50
40
General Physics
College Physics
30
20
10
0
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
Year
For further context, equivalent gains for several different schools and methods is provided below:
http://groups.physics.umn.edu/physed/Research/MNModel/FCI.html
The two graduating students took the SCE. The first student was unable to obtain >50% after three attempts. Our
department decided that we should allow him to examine several problems he had missed and orally present the
correct solutions to the department. This method appeared to allow him to demonstrate his knowledge in a more
comfortable setting and allowed him to eliminate some of his simple mistakes. The second student passed the SCE on
the second attempt. Given the small numbers, we are hesitant to make any strong conclusions about our program
based on these results.
IV.
State your department’s conclusions/interpretations from the assessment data. (Your department’s
interpretation of the data. Include program’s strengths and areas to improve.)
The gains achieved by the General Physics class continued the steady improvement of the last several years. The College
Physics course achieved similar gains. Both courses achieved gains that were high compared to similar courses taught at
other institutions.
The numerical results of the SCE and the lab notebooks have too small a sample size for a robust analysis. However, more
qualitatively, the lab notebooks could be improved upon in several ways. The students did not keep the notebooks current
as they performed their experiments. Several students, in fact, fell behind significantly in their note taking. This course
will be taught again in two years. At that time, we intend on changing the grading method to provide more immediate
feedback to students and to encourage students to maintain a current lab notebook.
V.
Describe how your department will use these conclusions/interpretations to improve student learning.
Physics education research has demonstrated that high gains are consistently achieved when peer instruction is used in the
lecture portion of the course. We will continue to use peer-instruction in the General Physics course. Since the College
Physics course will be taught by a one-year sabbatical replacement, we expect some unknown change in how the College
Physics course is taught. However, we specifically hired someone who has experience with peer-instruction and the
results of physics education research and the FCI. He has expressed a strong interest in continuing the methods that have
produced the high gains so far.
VI.
List 1-3 specific student learning goals in the program that your department wishes to assess for the
2011-12 academic year. (These could either be student learning goals listed in Section I, or parts of one or
more of those goals. You may decide to reassess the same goals or move on to other goals.)
Goal #1 Same as above
Goal #2 Same as above
VII.
Describe the methods to be used during the 2011-12 academic year to assess the student learning goals
identified in Section VII.
Goal # 1FCI, as above.
Goal #2 SCE, as above.