Assessing the Transfer of Student Knowledge from the Physics to Statics Course Across Two Years
Tuffner, Rowan
Tuffner, Rowan
Citations
Altmetric:
License
License
Abstract
Assessing the Transfer of Student Knowledge from the Physics to Statics Course Across Two Years Rowan Tuffner1, Varuni A. Seneviratne1, Priyantha Wijesinghe1, Courtney D Giles1, Larry R Medsker1,2 1The University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, United States, 2The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., United States At the University of Vermont, civil, biomedical, and mechanical engineering students take the Statics course as a requirement of their degree programs. The prerequisite course, Physics for Engineers, introduces concepts needed for the Statics course. This work is a part of an ongoing NSF-IUSE Learning Map project piloted during the spring and fall semesters of 2024 and 2025. The LMap project assesses the knowledge transfer from the Physics to Statics course, utilizing a problem set called Statics Knowledge Inventory (SKI) designed with problems related to Statics introduced in the Physics course. The study was carried out with 85 and 107 students in 2024 and 2025 respectively. This presentation focuses on the multiple choice questions (MCQ) from each set. The Fall 2024 problem set included five multiple choice questions. The Fall 2025 included the first four of the Fall 2024 set. The results show a percent improvement of correct answers for three MCQs between 5.4 and 8.5 in 2025 with respect to 2024. The poorly performed question in both sets was the 4th question on the moment of a force with 71.7% correct students in 2024 and 77.6% in 2025. Overall, 81.2% students answered at least 3 out of 4 of the common multiple choice questions correctly in 2024 and 89.7% in 2025. In this study, we also analyzed the incorrect answers to understand the misconceptions and knowledge gaps related to the application of vector concepts. The improvement from 2024 to 2025 can be attributed to the implementation of engineering focused problem sets in the Physics course.
Description
Date
1/1/2026
Student Status
Sophomore (Graduating in 2028)
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type of presentation
Poster
Collections
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Citation
DOI
Advisor(s)
Department
Program/Major
Civil Engineering
College/School
College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
Organization
Research Category
Social Science