Conceptual Coherence in Force Concept Inventory Data

Abstract

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has been used as a research instrument and to evaluate the conceptual understanding of students since it was first published in 1992. It is commonly used to assess the formation of conceptual structures in the minds of students who are learning Newtonian dynamics. For this reason it is vital that both researchers and teachers are assured that such conceptual coherence does, in fact, appear in FCI data, and are aware of the differences between Newtonian concepts as they appear in experts, and as they appear in students. The research presented here provides evidence that this conceptual coherence exists in FCI response data. This evidence is the result of a careful factor analysis of such data and we present the factor structure found in this analysis. This factor structure does not correspond exactly to the conceptual structure proposed by the authors of the FCI and thus is evidence of the difference between expert and novice conceptualisations of Newtonian Mechanics. Furthermore, we also provide an item response analysis of FCI data which is able to provide us with a better understanding of the specific abilities developed by our students and the interactions between these abilities as student obtain mastery of Newtonian ideas.