PhysPort Assessments: Rate and Potential Test

Assessments »Rate and Potential Test

Rate and Potential Test (RAPT)

Developed by Rhett Allain and Robert Beichner

Purpose	To investigate the connection between the students’ ideas about rate of change and electric potential.
Format	Multiple-choice
Duration	30 min
Focus	Electricity / Magnetism Content knowledge (electric potential, rate of change)
Level	Intro college

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Examples
Resources
Scoring
Research
Translations
Versions

Examples

Sample questions from the RAPT:

Resources

RAPT Implementation and Troubleshooting Guide

Everything you need to know about implementing the RAPT in your class.

R. Allain and R. Beichner, Rate of Change and Electric Potential, presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2004, Sacramento, California, 2004.

Research

RESEARCH VALIDATION
more details

Silver Validation
This is the second highest level of research validation, corresponding to at least 5 of the validation categories below.

Research Validation Summary

Based on Research Into:

Student thinking

Studied Using:

Student interviews
Expert review
Appropriate statistical analysis

Research Conducted:

At multiple institutions
By multiple research groups
Peer-reviewed publication

The multiple-choice questions on the RAPT were developed based on student ideas from interviews about rate of change and electric potential or taken from existing research-based assessments. The initial version of the RAPT was tested in think-aloud interviews with students and revised. An open-ended version was then given to students to check that the multiple-choice answers were indeed those that reflected student thinking. The RAPT was given to over 400 introductory physics students at 6 universities, and 18 upper-level physics students. Appropriate statistical analyses of reliability, difficulty and discrimination were performed, and reasonable values found. RAPT results are published in one peer-reviewed paper and one dissertation.

References

R. Allain, Investigating the Relationship Between Student Difficulties with the Concept of Electric Potential and the Concept of Rate of Change, Thesis, North Carolina State University , 2001.
R. Allain and R. Beichner, Rate of Change and Electric Potential, presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2004, Sacramento, California, 2004.

Translations

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Scoring

Typical Results
Typical scores on the RAPT. The RAPT was given as a post-test only, as it is not intended to measure student learning, but instead to look at the relationships between students understanding of rate of change and electric potential. (Allain, 2001)

Typical Results

Typical scores on the RAPT. The RAPT was given as a post-test only, as it is not intended to measure student learning, but instead to look at the relationships between students understanding of rate of change and electric potential. (Allain, 2001)

Versions

The latest versions of the RAPT, released in 2001, are versions A and B. Version A gives all the rate of change questions followed by all the electric potential questions. Version B gives a rate of change question followed by a similar electric potential question. The purpose of these two versions is to look at the difference in the way students answer the questions based on their order.

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