A Tale of Two Curricula: The performance of two thousand students in introductory electromagnetism*

Student performance in introductory calculus-based electromagnetism (E\&M) courses at four large research universities was measured using the Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA). Two different curricula were used at these universities: a traditional E\&M curriculum and the Matter \& Interactions (M\&I) curriculum. At each university, post-instruction BEMA test averages were significantly higher for the M\&I curriculum than for the traditional curriculum. The differences in post-test averages cannot be explained by differences in variables such as pre-instruction BEMA scores, grade point average, or SAT scores.