Back to Search
Start Over
The effect of research-based instruction in introductory physics on a common cognitive bias.
- Source :
- AIP Conference Proceedings; Jan2013, Vol. 1513 Issue 1, p138-141, 4p, 2 Charts, 3 Graphs
- Publication Year :
- 2013
-
Abstract
- Inspired by a paper at last year's PERC conference, in which Rebello [1] compared students' individual and cohort mean score estimations with their actual assessment scores, we present results of a study in which students in an introductory physics class were asked to predict their scores on two assessments, one delivered at the start of the course (pre-instruction) and one at the end of the course (post-instruction). Our results show that, pre-instruction, the academically strongest students tend to underestimate their score slightly, whereas the weakest overestimate their performance significantly, consistent with the findings of Rebello and demonstrating a well-known cognitive bias (the Dunning-Kruger effect). Post-instruction, we find that the ability of the original weakest quartile cohort to accurately predict their own assessment score has improved significantly, but a flux of students between quartiles from one assessment to the other reveals that the least able students continue to over-estimate their performance, but with a reduced mean discrepancy. We discuss the implications these results have for instruction and for development of enhanced metacognition amongst physics students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- EDUCATION
COGNITIVE bias
PHYSICS students
PERFORMANCE
METACOGNITION
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 0094243X
- Volume :
- 1513
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- AIP Conference Proceedings
- Publication Type :
- Conference
- Accession number :
- 85040165
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4789671