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Does it Stick? – Investigating Long-term Retention of Conceptual Knowledge in Mechanics Instruction

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Conference

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Seattle, Washington

Publication Date

June 14, 2015

Start Date

June 14, 2015

End Date

June 17, 2015

ISBN

978-0-692-50180-1

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Concepts and Conceptual Knowledge

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods

Page Count

14

Page Numbers

26.559.1 - 26.559.14

DOI

10.18260/p.23897

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/23897

Download Count

651

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Paper Authors

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Julie Direnga Hamburg University of Technology

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Julie Direnga studied General Engineering Science at Hamburg University of Technology in Hamburg, Germany from 2006 to 2010. Specializing in the field of mechatronics, she received a M.Sc. degree in 2014. Since March 2014, she is pursuing her Ph.D. in Engineering Education Research at the same institution.

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Bradley Presentati Hamburg University of Technology

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Bradley Presentati completed a B.A. in English literature with an emphasis on creative writing in 2006 at UCSC. He is currently studying in the General Engineering Science bachelor program at Hamburg University of Technology with an emphasis on electrical engineering.

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Dion Timmermann Hamburg University of Technology

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Dion Timmermann studied electrical engineering at Hamburg University of Technology, Hamburg, Germany. In his master thesis he worked on simulation methods for the signal and power analysis of high speed data links. He currently pursues his Ph.D. in the Engineering Education Research Group at Hamburg University of Technology, where he investigates students understanding in introductory electrical engineering.

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Andrea Brose Hamburg University of Technology

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1998 Ph.D. in Mathematics, University of Colorado Boulder
1999-2008 Assistant Professor, lecturer and academic administrator, Department of Mathematics, UCLA
2008-2011 Engineering Education, Hamburg University of Technology
Since 2011 Scientific Staff at Center for Teaching and Learning
Since 2013 Head of Center for Teaching and Learning, Hamburg University of Technology

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Christian H Kautz Hamburg University of Technology

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Christian H. Kautz has a Diplom degree in Physics from University of Hamburg and a Ph.D. in Physics (for work in Physics Education Research) from the University of Washington. Currently, he leads the Engineering Education Research Group at Hamburg University of Technology.

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Abstract

Does it stick? - Investigating long-term retention of conceptual knowledge in mechanics instructionThe main purpose of instruction in engineering is to prepare students for their future jobs aswell as for courses that they subsequently take and which are often expected to build upon theresult of earlier instruction. Therefore, the knowledge gained in courses is meant to beretained, but is it really? While there is a large body of research that focuses on teachingeffectiveness by measuring how much knowledge was gained during instruction, the questionof how much of this knowledge is actually retained in the years following completion of thecourse is less frequently addressed although it is equally important.In this paper, we investigate the long-term retention of conceptual understanding inmechanics based on data from the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) as well as the ConceptAssessment Tool for Statics (CATS). We compare students' immediate post-instruction testscores from various years in the past to their test scores of today. This allows us to investigatethe influence of time and other factors on the retention of knowledge in mechanics. We thencompare these findings to similar studies from literature in other disciplines.  

Direnga, J., & Presentati, B., & Timmermann, D., & Brose, A., & Kautz, C. H. (2015, June), Does it Stick? – Investigating Long-term Retention of Conceptual Knowledge in Mechanics Instruction Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23897

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