An analysis of the students’ performance in selected physics problems

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to design and propose a framework to assess and gauge the difficulty examination questions for PH1012 – Physics A. Literature review is done to review factors for difficulty from previous studies and research and combine relevant factors to design an objective framework that can be used. The proposed framework is made up of two scales, the Complexity Scale and the Similarity Scale. Lecture notes, tutorial questions as well as past year papers are analysed to check the feasibility of the framework. Although this produced an expected trend for a working system, the standard deviation is too large for it to be useful in assessing short examination papers with only a few questions involved. Using this framework, the past year results of students are analysed, namely in the topic of Conservation of Energy and Projectile Motion. Additional factors such as mathematical skills and depth of conceptual understanding arose that should be taken into consideration for future works as a possible dimension on top of the current framework.