Developed by Laura McCullough
| Purpose | To assess students’ understanding of the most basic concepts in Newtonian physics using everyday language and common-sense distractors, using contexts that are more "everyday" or "feminine. |
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| Format | Pre/post, Multiple-choice |
| Duration | 30 min |
| Focus | Mechanics Content knowledge (kinematics, forces) |
| Level | Intro college, High school |
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Sample question from the G-FCI:
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Bronze ValidationThis is the third highest level of research validation, corresponding to at least 3 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
McCullough rewrote questions on the FCI to address the same content with more feminine and everyday contexts, e.g. changing a question about an airplane dropping a package to an eagle dropping a fish. She found that in a calculus-based introductory physics class the average scores for women on G-FCI were similar to those on the original FCI. Further, the gender gap in average scores on pre- and posttests was similar for the original and gender FCI. She compared the performance of men and women on individual questions on the original and gender FCI. She found that women performed better on gender FCI items 14 and 23, while men did worse on gender FCI item 22 and better on item 29. These differences averaged out so that overall, rewriting the FCI to have more feminine and everyday contexts did not change the gender gap. (McCullough and Meltzer 2001, McCullough 2002, McCullough 2011)
References
- L. McCullough, Gender Differences in Student Responses to Physics Conceptual Questions Based on Question Context, presented at the ASQ Advancing the STEM Agenda in Education, the Workplace and Society, University of Wisconsin-Stout, 2011.
- L. McCullough, Gender, Math, and the FCI, presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2002, Boise, Idaho, 2002.
- L. McCullough and D. Meltzer, Differences in Male/Female Response Patterns on Alternative-format Versions of the Force Concept Inventory, presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2001, Rochester, New York, 2001.
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In a calculus-based introductory physics class the average scores on the the G-FCI are similar to those on the original FCI, as illustrated by the figure below from McCullough 2009: AVERAGE SCORE ON EACH VERSION OF THE TEST, BY TIME OF ADMINISTRATION:
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The G-FCI is on one of several variations of the original Force Concept Inventory, all of which have the same answer key:
- The Gender FCI (aka Everyday FCI) uses the same questions and answer choices as the original FCI, but changes the contexts to make them more "everyday" or "feminine" (McCullough & Meltzer, 2001; McCullough, 2011).
- The Animated FCI takes the original FCI questions and animates the diagrams, so it is given on a computer. (Dancy and Beichner, 2006)
- The Familiar Context FCI was adapted from the Gender FCI by Jane Jackson.
- The Simplified FCI was adapted from the original FCI by Jane Jackson for ninth grade physics. It was written at a 7th grade reading level and includes more illustrations, but assesses the same concepts. (Osborn Popp and Jackson 2009)
The latest version of the G-FCI, released in 2000, is version 3.
Variations
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Force Concept InventoryContent knowledge Mechanics (forces, kinematics)Intro college, High school Pre/post, Multiple-choice |
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Simplified Force Concept InventoryContent knowledge Mechanics (kinematics, forces)High school, Middle school Pre/post, Multiple-choice |
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Familiar Context Force Concept InventoryContent knowledge Mechanics (kinematics, forces)Intro college, High school Pre/post, Multiple-choice |
