Tapping into Juniors’ Understanding of E&M: The Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics (CUE) Diagnostic Documents

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Tapping into Juniors’ Understanding of E&M: The Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics (CUE) Diagnostic 

written by Stephanie Viola Chasteen and Steven J. Pollock

As part of an effort to systematically improve our junior-level E&M I course, we are developing a tool to assess student learning of E&M concepts at the upper-division. Along with a faculty working group, we established a list of learning goals for the course that, with student observations and interviews, served as a guide in creating the Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics (CUE) assessment. The result is a 17-question open-ended post-test (with an optional 7-question pre-test) diagnostic, and accompanying grading rubric. We present the preliminary validation of the instrument and rubric, plus results from 226 students in 4 semesters at the University of Colorado, and 4 additional universities.

Published November 11, 2009
Last Modified October 4, 2009

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