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Developing and Using Distractor-Driven Multiple-Choice Assessments Aligned to Ideas About Energy Forms, Transformation, Transfer, and Conservation

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Teaching and Learning of Energy in K – 12 Education

Abstract

This chapter presents a summary of middle and high school students’ understanding of energy and the differences and similarities in the ideas that the middle and high school students hold. The student data are a result of the field testing of items aligned to ideas about forms of energy, energy transformations, energy transfer, and conservation of energy that were administered to 23,744 middle and high school students in 48 states across the U.S. between 2009 and 2010. Rasch modeling was used to analyze the data, and the data had a good fit to the model. Analysis of covariance, controlling for gender and English as the student’s primary language, showed a steady increase in student understanding of key energy concepts between 7th and 12th grades. Option probability curves provided additional information about the progression of students’ understanding of energy concepts and the persistence of a number of energy-related misconceptions.

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Acknowledgements

The research reported here was supported by the National Science Foundation, through Grants # ESI 0227557 and ESI 0352473, and the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A120138 to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute, the U.S. Department of Education, or the National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. American Association for the Advancement of Science/Project 2061, Washington, DC, USA

    Cari F. Herrmann-Abell & George E. DeBoer

Authors
  1. Cari F. Herrmann-Abell
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  2. George E. DeBoer
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Correspondence to Cari F. Herrmann-Abell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental, Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Robert F. Chen

  2. Education and Human Development, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Arthur Eisenkraft

  3. Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    David Fortus

  4. College of Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

    Joseph Krajcik

  5. Leibniz-Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN), Kiel, Germany

    Knut Neumann

  6. San Antonio Children's Museum, San Antonio, Texas, USA

    Jeffrey Nordine

  7. Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Allison Scheff

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Herrmann-Abell, C.F., DeBoer, G.E. (2014). Developing and Using Distractor-Driven Multiple-Choice Assessments Aligned to Ideas About Energy Forms, Transformation, Transfer, and Conservation. In: Chen, R., et al. Teaching and Learning of Energy in K – 12 Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05017-1_7

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