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Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research
written by Terry F. Scott, Dániel Schumayer, and Andrew Gray
We perform a factor analysis on a "Force Concept Inventory" (FCI) data set collected from 2109 respondents. We address two questions: the appearance of conceptual coherence in student responses to the FCI and some consequences of this factor analysis on the teaching of Newtonian mechanics. We will highlight the apparent conflation of Newton's third law with Newton's first law in one of the FCI questions and suggest an approach to teaching that may avoid this issue. We also note the absence of a distinct factor interpretable as relating specifically to kinematics. Furthermore, we identify and discuss some of the technical difficulties which may be encountered when performing factor analysis on categorical data sets, such as is the case with FCI data sets.
Subjects Levels Resource Types
Classical Mechanics
- Newton's First Law
- Newton's Third Law
Education Foundations
- Assessment
= Conceptual Assessment
= Instruments
= Methods
- Research Design & Methodology
= Evaluation
= Statistics
= Validity
- Lower Undergraduate
- High School
- Reference Material
= Research study
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Access Rights:
Free access
License:
This material is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
Rights Holder:
American Physical Society
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.8.020105
PACSs:
01.40.-d
45.20.D-
Keyword:
FCI
Record Creator:
Metadata instance created August 9, 2012 by Raina Khatri
Record Updated:
January 31, 2014 by Lyle Barbato
Last Update
when Cataloged:
July 31, 2012
Other Collections:

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AIP Format
T. Scott, D. Schumayer, and A. Gray, , Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8 (2), 020105 (2012), WWW Document, (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.8.020105).
AJP/PRST-PER
T. Scott, D. Schumayer, and A. Gray, Exploratory factor analysis of a Force Concept Inventory data set, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8 (2), 020105 (2012), <https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.8.020105>.
APA Format
Scott, T., Schumayer, D., & Gray, A. (2012, July 31). Exploratory factor analysis of a Force Concept Inventory data set. Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res., 8(2), 020105. Retrieved December 2, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.8.020105
Chicago Format
Scott, T, D. Schumayer, and A. Gray. "Exploratory factor analysis of a Force Concept Inventory data set." Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, no. 2, (July 31, 2012): 020105, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.8.020105 (accessed 2 December 2024).
MLA Format
Scott, Terry, Dániel Schumayer, and Andrew Gray. "Exploratory factor analysis of a Force Concept Inventory data set." Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8.2 (2012): 020105. 2 Dec. 2024 <https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.8.020105>.
BibTeX Export Format
@article{ Author = "Terry Scott and Dániel Schumayer and Andrew Gray", Title = {Exploratory factor analysis of a Force Concept Inventory data set}, Journal = {Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res.}, Volume = {8}, Number = {2}, Pages = {020105}, Month = {July}, Year = {2012} }
Refer Export Format

%A Terry Scott %A Dániel Schumayer %A Andrew Gray %T Exploratory factor analysis of a Force Concept Inventory data set %J Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. %V 8 %N 2 %D July 31, 2012 %P 020105 %U https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.8.020105 %O application/pdf

EndNote Export Format

%0 Journal Article %A Scott, Terry %A Schumayer, Dániel %A Gray, Andrew %D July 31, 2012 %T Exploratory factor analysis of a Force Concept Inventory data set %J Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. %V 8 %N 2 %P 020105 %8 July 31, 2012 %U https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.8.020105


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