Monitoring the Teaching — Learning Process via an Entropy Based Index

Abstract

The concept of entropy is central to thermodynamics, statistical mechanics and information theory. Inspired by Shannon’s information theory we define an entropy based performance index (S p ) for monitoring the teaching-learning process. Our index is based on item response theory which is commonly employed in psychometrics and currently in physics education research. We propose a parametrization scheme for distractor curve.We have carried out a number of surveys to see the dependence of S p on student’s ability, peer instruction and collaborative learning. Our surveys indicate that S p plays a role analogous to entropy in statistical mechanics, with student’s ability being akin to inverse temperature, peer instruction to an ordering (magnetic) field and collaborative learning to interaction.