written by Justyna P. Zwolak and Corinne A. Manogue

The Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics (CUE) Diagnostic is an exam developed as part of the curriculum reform at the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU). It was designed to assess conceptual learning within upper-division electricity and magnetism (E&M). Using the CUE, we have been documenting students' understanding of E&M at Oregon State University (OSU) over a period of 5 years. Our analysis indicates that the CUE identifies concepts that are generally difficult for students, regardless of the curriculum. The overall pattern of OSU students' scores reproduces the pattern reported by Chasteen et al. at CU. There are, however, some important differences that we will address. In particular, our students struggle with the CUE problems involving separation of variables and boundary conditions. We will discuss the possible causes for this, as well as steps that may rectify the situation.

• Download PERC14_Zwolak.pdf - 2132kb Adobe PDF Document

Last Modified April 28, 2015

This file is included in the full-text index.