Categorized and Correlated Multiple-Choice Questions: A Tool for Assessing Comprehensive Physics Knowledge of Students

An efficacious assessment tool is as necessary for improving physics education as are innovative and effective methods of teaching physics. Most tests focus on evaluating students knowledge in specific areas such as conceptual understating, quantitative, and analytical problem-solving skills. Testing students’ critical thinking has remained a difficult task. Further, testing students comprehensive knowledge is even more challenging. We present here a new assessment tool with the acronym “Categorized and Correlated Multiple Choice Questions” (CCMCQs) for evaluating the comprehensive physics knowledge level of students. This tool consists of correlated questions posed in three different sub-categories of physics. Those sub-categories are: (i) Conceptual understanding, (ii) Critical thinking, and (iii) Quantitative understanding. The questions are structured to first pose a conceptual question which is then correlated with a critical thinking question and that critical thinking question is further correlated with a quantitative question. Thus, all three questions are correlated with each other, and such correlated questions aid the student and teacher alike to identify learning deficiency more accurately, and guide students to self-correct their knowledge of physics by providing appropriate direction. Further, we discuss the outcomes of a one semester study on CCMCQs using data obtained from an introductory physics course