written by Gayle Geschwind, Michael Vignal, and H. J. Lewandowski

Measurement uncertainty plays a critical role in the process of experimental physics. It is useful to be able to assess student proficiency around the topic to iteratively improve instruction and student learning.  For the topic of measurement uncertainty, an assessment tool was developed; the Survey of Physics Reasoning on Uncertainty Concepts in Experiments (SPRUCE) aims to assess students' knowledge, and use of, a variety of concepts related to measurement uncertainty. This assessment includes two isomorphic questions focused on comparing two measurements with uncertainty. One is presented numerically and the other pictorially. Despite the questions probing identical concepts, students answer them in different ways, indicating that they rely on distinct modes of representation to make sense of measurement uncertainty and comparisons.  Specifically, students score much higher on the pictorially represented item, which suggests possible instructional changes to leverage students' use of representations while working with concepts of measurement uncertainty.

• Download PERC2023_Geschwind.pdf - 765kb Adobe PDF Document

Last Modified September 20, 2023

This file is included in the full-text index.