Surveying students' conceptual knowledge of electricity and magnetism

The Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) was developed to assess students' knowledge about topics in electricity and magnetism. The s urvey is a 32-question, multiple-choice test that can be used as both a pre test and posttest. During four years of testing and refinement, the survey has been given in one form or another to more than 5000 introductory physic s students at 30 different institutions. Typical pretest results are that s tudents in calculus-based courses get 31% of the questions correct and stud ent's in algebra/trigonometry-based courses average 25% correct. Posttest c orrect results only rise to 47% and 44%, respectively. From analysis of stu dent responses, a number of student difficulties in electricity and magneti sm are indicated. (C) 2001 American Association of Physics Teachers.