  Ishimoto, Davenport, and Wittmann have previously reported analyses of data
from student responses to the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE), in
which they used item response curves (IRCs) to make claims about American and
Japanese students' relative likelihood to choose certain incorrect responses to
some questions. We have used an independent data set of over 6,500 American
students' responses to the FMCE to generate IRCs to test their claims.
Converting the IRCs to vectors, we used dot product analysis to compare each
response item quantitatively. For most questions, our analyses are consistent
with Ishimoto, Davenport, and Wittmann, with some results suggesting more minor
differences between American and Japanese students than previously reported. We
also highlight the pedagogical advantages of using IRCs to determine the
differences in response patterns for different populations to better understand
student thinking prior to instruction.

Physics Education