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Modeling Students’ Performances in Physics Assessment Tasks Using Epistemic Network Analysis

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Advances in Quantitative Ethnography (ICQE 2022)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1785))

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Abstract

The education community continues to struggle to support students to make meaningful connections between disciplinary learning at schools with their everyday life experiences. Even when the students engage in meaningful science learning experiences, recognizing the connections and relations that students make through their engagement is methodologically challenging, especially through the analysis of qualitative data. The purpose of this study was to explore the patterns of connections that students generated through their participation in a co-designed physics unit. We analyzed 76 high school students written and pictorial responses to performance assessment tasks designed to engage students in physics learning. We used quantitative ethnographic techniques and a tool named Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA), to visualize the structure of connections between physics concepts and real-life experiences in students’ assessment tasks. The ENA results revealed patterns of connections that students generated between physics concepts they learned at school and their everyday experiences. Notably, the analyses showed differences in patterns of connections between male and female participants and between written and pictorial preferences in momentum and impulse unit assessment tasks. The implications for curriculum design and performance assessment in science are discussed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Hamideh Talafian

  2. University of California, Irvine, 92617, USA

    Hosun Kang

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  1. Hamideh Talafian
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  2. Hosun Kang
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Correspondence to Hamideh Talafian .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Crina Damşa

  2. Drexel University School of Education, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Amanda Barany

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Talafian, H., Kang, H. (2023). Modeling Students’ Performances in Physics Assessment Tasks Using Epistemic Network Analysis. In: Damşa, C., Barany, A. (eds) Advances in Quantitative Ethnography. ICQE 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1785. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31726-2_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31726-2_20

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-31725-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-31726-2

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