Developing web-oriented homework system to assess students' introductory physics course performance and compare to paper-based peer homework

Abstract

The World Wide Web influences education and our lives in many ways. Nowadays, Web-based homework has been becoming widespread practice in physics courses and some other courses as well. Although are some disputes whether this is an encouraging or risky development for student learning, there is limited research assessing the pedagogical effect of changing the medium from written, hand-graded homework to online oriented, computer-graded homework. In this study, web-oriented homework system is developed to assess students' introductory physics course performance. Later on, these results are compared with paper-based (peer) homework performance for mid enrollment physics courses. One of two identical sections of introductory physics course students received paper-based, hand graded group homework while the other received the individual web-based homework. Then two groups' on conceptual and problem-solving performance measures are compared. No significant differences were found in students' Force Concept Inventory (FCI) test scores; however, average homework performance scores were significant that could be attributed to the homework method used in favor of paper-based peer homework group.