Normalized FCI Gain as a Measure

Many teachers administer a force concept test such as the Force Concept Invento-ry1,2 (FCI) to their students in an effort to evaluate and improve their instructional practices. It has been commonly assumed that looking at class nor-malized gains allows teachers to compare their courses with other courses. In this paper we present evidence to suggest that the use of class normalized gains alone may not provide a complete picture. We argue that student reasoning ability should also be assessed be-fore between-course comparisons can be made. As-sessment of reasoning ability is also useful in identify-ing students who are at risk. In the following we shall concentrate on the FCI, but we think our conclusions probably apply to physics concept tests generally