PROCEEDINGS OF THE 19TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2016
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Using adjacency matrices to analyze a proposed linear algebra assessment
Page: 1104
An assessment of student learning of major topics in linear algebra is currently being created as part of a larger study on inquiry-oriented linear algebra. This includes both the assessment instrument and a way to understand the results. The assessment instrument is modeled off of the Colorado Upper-division Electrostatics (CUE) diagnostic (Wilcox & Pollock, 2013). There are two parts to each question: a multiple-choice part and an explanation part. In the explanation part, the student is given a list of possible explanations and is asked to select all that could justify their original choice. This type of assessment provides information on the connections made by students. However, analyzing the results is not straightforward. We propose the use of adjacency matrices, as developed by Selinski, Rasmussen, Wawro, & Zandieh (2014), to analyze the connections that students demonstrate.