Use of Multiple Choice Questions as an Assessment Tool in Dynamics

Dynamics is a pivotal class in a student’s life-long learning profile since it builds upon the logical extensions of Statics and Strength of Materials classes, and provides a framework on which Fluid Mechanics concepts may be developed for deformable media. This paper establishes the contextual reference of Dynamics in this framework. An earlier paper by the author discussed details of how the design of proper multiple choice questions is critical for assessment in Statics and Fluid Mechanics. This paper provides a progress report of such evaluations in Dynamics. In addition, this paper explores the pedagogical issues related to building a student’s learning profile. While comparing test results obtained in trailer sections of Dynamics with those obtained in sections taught by faculty teams, some structural differences were discovered. This reporting completes the feedback loop used by faculty in our Engineering Sciences Core Curriculum for improving student performance over time. The process may further be developed by using some similarities and differences in the performance data.