What students learn when studying physics practice exam problems

We developed a web-based tool to provide students with access to old exam problems and solutions. By controlling the order in which students saw the problems, as well as their access to solutions, we obtained data about student learning by studying old exam problems. Our data suggest that in general...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Witat Fakcharoenphol, Eric Potter, Timothy Stelzer
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2011-05-01
Series:Physical Review Special Topics. Physics Education Research
Online Access:http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.7.010107
Description
Summary:We developed a web-based tool to provide students with access to old exam problems and solutions. By controlling the order in which students saw the problems, as well as their access to solutions, we obtained data about student learning by studying old exam problems. Our data suggest that in general students learn from doing old exam problems, and that having access to the problem solutions increases their learning. However, the data also suggest the depth of learning may be relatively shallow. In addition, the data show that doing old exam problems provides important formative assessment about the student’s overall preparedness for the exam and their particular areas of strength and weakness.
ISSN:1554-9178