A pre-post topic assessment tool for uncovering misconceptions and assessing their repair and conceptual change

Misconceptions act as barriers to conceptual change, but uncovering and repairing them requires considerable effort. Thus, the research question is, "How effective is a simple pre-post topic assessment tool in uncovering misconceptions and assessing their repair and student conceptual change?" A multimodal pre-and-post topic assessment tool was created to identify misconceptions and assess their repair and student conceptual change. Pre-post assessments were created for six course topics for an introductory materials class. Assessments were composed of four to six describe-and-sketch questions given before and after a topic. Data showed incoming students are familiar with written descriptions (possibly memorized) of covalent, ionic, and metallic bonding, but not van der Waals bonding. Conceptual understanding was much less when models were sketched, indicating conceptual knowledge that was shallower than written descriptions indicated. Gains were always less for sketched than written models, indicative of greater difficulty of conceptual change and building detailed bonding mental models. Visuals, misconceptions, conceptual change and learning are presented in full detail in the paper body.