Physics Metacognition Inventory Part II: Confirmatory factor analysis and Rasch analysis

Abstract

The Physics Metacognition Inventory was developed to measure physics students’ metacognition for problem solving. In one of our earlier studies, an exploratory factor analysis provided evidence of preliminary construct validity, revealing six components of students’ metacognition when solving physics problems including knowledge of cognition, planning, monitoring, evaluation, debugging, and information management. The college students’ scores on the inventory were found to be reliable and related to students’ physics motivation and physics grade. However, the results of the exploratory factor analysis indicated that the questionnaire could be revised to improve its construct validity. The goal of this study was to revise the questionnaire and establish its construct validity through a confirmatory factor analysis. In addition, a Rasch analysis was applied to the data to better understand the psychometric properties of the inventory and to further evaluate the construct validity. Results indicated that the final, revised inventory is a valid, reliable, and efficient tool for assessing student metacognition for physics problem solving.

Keywords:

• Metacognition
• Physics education
• Construct validity
• Confirmatory factor analysis
• Rasch analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Two of the ten subjects marked two responses/grades and the mean of the two grades was used to assign the two students a final grade.

2. There are approximately 7–11 individuals outside this range of person measures. For example, there are two to four persons at the extremes of the person measures on the Wright map (above +4 and close to ‒2).

3. The reliability (internal consistency as measured by traditional Cronbach's alpha) of the 26 items of the PMI was 0.87.