written by Christopher J. Omasits and Doris J. Wagner

The Maryland Physics Expectations Test (MPEX) is a Likert-scale survey used to study students' attitudes toward learning physics. Student responses are categorized as either favorable or unfavorable as determined by the prevalent responses given by an expert control group. We investigated the possibility of false negative or positive responses on the student surveys by asking students to elaborate on their responses to some of the statements. While the majority (more than 95%) of explanations were consistent with the corresponding Likert choice, a few questions generated multiple student responses that deserved further review. Several of these "interesting" student responses were compiled and sent to physics experts who gauged the favorability of each entire response. Here we present our analysis of the questions that generated the highest number of inconsistent responses.

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Published February 14, 2006
Last Modified July 9, 2013

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