{{Short description, Newtonian concept testThe Force Concept Inventory is a test measuring mastery of concepts commonly taught in a first semester of physics developed by Hestenes, Halloun, Wells, and Swackhamer (1985). It was the first such " concept inventory" and several others have been developed since for a variety of topics.Halloun, I. A., & Hestenes, D. Common sense concepts about motion (1985). American Journal of Physics, 53, 1043-1055. The FCI was designed to assess student understanding of the Newtonian concepts of force. Hestenes (1998) found that while "nearly 80% of the tudents completing introductory college physics coursescould state

Newton's Third Law Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows: # A body remains at rest, or in moti ...

at the beginning of the course, FCI data showed that less than 15% of them fully understood it at the end". These results have been replicated in a number of studies involving students at a range of institutions (see sources section below), and have led to greater recognition in the

physics education Physics education refers to the methods currently used to teach physics. Physics Education Research refers to an area of pedagogical research that seeks to improve those methods. Historically, physics has been taught at the high school and colleg ...

research community of the importance of students' "active engagement" with the materials to be mastered.

Gender differences

The FCI shows a gender difference in favor of males that has been the subject of some research in regard to gender equity in education. Men score on average about 10% higher.Adrian Madsen, Sarah B. McKagan, Eleanor C. Sayre (2013)
"The gender gap on concept inventories in physics: what is consistent, what is inconsistent, and what factors influence the gap?".
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References

Psychological tests and scales Physics education