Regression analysis exploring teacher impact on student FCI post scores Documents

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Regression analysis exploring teacher impact on student FCI post scores 

written by Jonathan V. Mahadeo, Seth Manthey, and Eric Brewe

High School Modeling Workshops are designed to improve high school physics teachers' understanding of physics and how to teach using the Modeling method. The basic assumption is that the teacher plays a critical role in their students' physics education. This study investigated teacher impacts on students' Force Concept Inventory scores, (FCI), with the hopes of identifying quantitative differences between teachers. This study examined student FCI scores from 18 teachers with at least a year of teaching high school physics. This data was then evaluated using a General Linear Model (GLM), which allowed for a regression equation to be fitted to the data. This regression equation was used to predict student post FCI scores, based on: teacher ID, student pre FCI score, gender, and representation. The results show 12 out of 18 teachers significantly impact their student post FCI scores. The GLM further revealed that of the 12 teachers only five have a positive impact on student post FCI scores. Given these differences among teachers it is our intention to extend our analysis to investigate pedagogical differences between them.

Published January 24, 2013
Last Modified June 27, 2013