Mechanics Cognitive Diagnostic (MCD)
What are Mechanic Cognitive Diagnostic Assessments?
It is an advanced computerized adaptive test designed to evaluate how well students have mastered key skills in introductory mechanics. With MCD, instructors can:
- Customize Assessments: Select specific skills and content areas to focus on.
- Provide Regular Feedback: Generate detailed reports that help track student progress, even on a weekly basis.
This tool empowers both instructors and students by identifying strengths and areas for improvement, ensuring a targeted and effective learning experience.
For Students:
- Start with Moderate Questions: The test begins with questions of average difficulty.
- Real-Time Adjustments: Based on your answers, the system dynamically selects and adjusts the difficulty of the next questions.
- Short and Accurate: This process ensures a tailored assessment with the minimum number of questions while accurately evaluating your skills.
For Instructors:
- Actionable Insights: After each test, detailed reports show students’ skill mastery and overall proficiency.
- Weekly Feedback: Receive updates on student performance, enabling timely adjustments to teaching strategies.
- Support Individual Needs: Use the insights to address specific challenges and improve student learning outcomes.
Detailed Reporting:
- Instructors: Access interactive reports that provide a clear overview of student proficiency and mastery of each objective.
- Students: Receive individualized feedback to track progress and focus on areas needing improvement.
How it Works?
Benefits of Using MCD Assessments on LASSO
Customizable: Instructors can choose specific learning objectives and administer assessments multiple times during a semester.
Efficient: AI adapts to each student, saving instructors time while maintaining accuracy.
Time: This test usually takes 30 minutes.
Actionable Feedback: Students receive detailed feedback to track their progress and focus on areas requiring attention.
Continuous Monitoring: Instructors can monitor and support student growth throughout the course.
MCD covers 3 skills
Item requires manipulating vectors in more than one dimension or has a change in sign for a 1-D vector quantity.
Item requires students to identify a relationship between variables and/or the situations in which those relationships apply.
Item requires extracting information from or creating formal visualizations such as xy plots, bar plots, or line graphs.
Example Questions
Kinematics
Items concerning the motion of objects without reference to the forces that cause the motion.
Forces
Free body diagram, and Newtonian laws.
Energy
Conservation of energy, work, set up system, and the relationship between force and potential energy.
Momentum
Conservation of momentum and impulse.
Mathematics
Items that require mathematics that are not embedded in physics problems with topics include (pre)-calculus.
Research
Le, V., Nissen, J. M., Tang, X., Zhang, Y., Mehrabi, A., Morphew, J. W., … & Van Dusen, B. (2025). Applying cognitive diagnostic models to mechanics concept inventories. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 21(1), 010103. (Editors’ Suggestion)
Le, V., Van Dusen, B., Nissen, J., Tang, X., Zhang, Y., Chang, H., & Morphew, J. (2024, July 10-11). Mechanics Cognitive Diagnostic: Mathematics skills tested in introductory physics courses. Paper presented at Physics Education Research Conference 2024, Boston, MA. Retrieved September 27, 2024, from https://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=16903&DocID=5970
Example LASSO Report
Information coming soon …
Similar Instruments
More Information
Relevant papers about the cognitive diagnostic model and computerized adaptive test.
de la Torre, J., & Minchen, N. (2014). Cognitively diagnostic assessments and the cognitive diagnosis model framework. Psicología Educativa, 20(2), 89-97.
Morphew, J. W., Mestre, J. P., Kang, H. A., Chang, H. H., & Fabry, G. (2018). Using computer adaptive testing to assess physics proficiency and improve exam performance in an introductory physics course. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 14(2), 020110.
McGlohen, M., & Chang, H. H. (2008). Combining computer adaptive testing technology with cognitively diagnostic assessment. Behavior research methods, 40, 808-82.
Yu, X., Cheng, Y., & Chang, H. H. (2019). Recent developments in cognitive diagnostic computerized adaptive testing (CD-CAT): A comprehensive review. Handbook of diagnostic classification models: Models and model extensions, applications, software packages, 307-331.