Student response times to in-class thermodynamics concept questions: a window into students’ thinking processes

• Autores: Bill J. Brooks, Dedra N. Demaree, Milo D. Koretsky
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 32, no. 1 (Parte A), 2016, págs. 30-38
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In this study, we measured chemical engineering students’ response times to multiple choice thermodynamics conceptquestions while the students were engaged in technology-facilitated active learning in class. We examine response timedifferences for over 12,000 responses: between correct and incorrect answers, with and without written explanations tojustify the answers, and as a function of question difficulty. For students who wrote a written explanation, we alsoinvestigated the length of explanation. We are interested in both implementation issues for the practitioner and incontributing to the extant understanding of the ways in which these type of question influence student thinking processes.Our findings show that students who answer correctly take less time to answer easy questions than those who answerincorrectly, but more time for more difficult questions. Response times are correlated with question difficulty when thecorrect answer is chosen, but not for incorrect answers. Moreover, for easy questions, explanations that are correct arelikely to contain more words whereas for more difficult questions explanations associated with incorrect answers containmore words. When accounting for difficulty, it takes students about 100 seconds longer to provide a written explanationjustifying their answer choice. However, differences in response data suggest that students who justify their answers inwriting also more commonly activate thinking processes that focus on domain-specific knowledge. When possible, weadvocate using written explanations in conjunction with multiple-choice concept questions during active learning in class,arguing that the short additional time needed to allow students to type explanations activates more deliberate thinkingprocesses.