The Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA) is a multiple-choice instrument commonly used to measure introductory undergraduate students’ conceptual understanding of electricity and magnetism. This study used a network analysis technique called modified module analysis-partial (MMA-P) to identify clusters of correlated responses, also known as communities, within 12214 BEMA responses. MMA-P identifies both communities related to the structure of the instrument and communities related to incorrect student reasoning. Every community resulting from MMA-P came from blocked items; groups of items that all refer to the same physical system. The most prevalent and consistently selected incorrect answers involved the relation of the electric field to the electric potential difference. The community structure identified in the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) by a prior MMA-P study on items shared by the CSEM and BEMA differed because of the different incorrect responses available in the two instruments. One pair of items in the BEMA involving the induced electric field by a changing magnetic field showed evidence of students applying a variety of incorrect models; the scores on these items indicate their inclusion in the instrument should be reconsidered.

中文翻译：

---

将模块分析应用于简要电学和磁学评估

简要电学和磁学评估 (BEMA) 是一种多项选择工具，通常用于衡量入门本科生对电学和磁学的概念理解。本研究使用了一种称为修改模块分析部分 (MMA-P) 的网络分析技术来识别 12214 个 BEMA 响应中的相关响应簇（也称为社区）。 MMA-P 识别与仪器结构相关的社区和与不正确的学生推理相关的社区。 MMA-P 产生的每个社区都来自被阻止的项目；全部引用同一物理系统的项目组。最普遍且一致选择的错误答案涉及电场与电势差的关系。之前的 MMA-P 研究对 CSEM 和 BEMA 共享的项目进行的电和磁概念调查 (CSEM) 中确定的群落结构有所不同，因为两种仪器中可用的错误响应不同。 BEMA 中涉及由变化的磁场引起的感应电场的一对项目显示了学生应用各种错误模型的证据；这些项目的分数表明应重新考虑将其纳入文书中。