Development of validated physics surveys on various topics is important for investigating the extent
to which students master those concepts after traditional instruction and for assessing innovative
curricula and pedagogies that can improve student understanding significantly. Here, we discuss the
development and validation of a conceptual multiple-choice survey related to magnetism suitable for
introductory physics courses. The survey was developed taking into account common students’
difficulties with magnetism concepts covered in introductory physics courses found in our
investigation and the incorrect choices to the multiple-choice questions were designed based upon
those common student difficulties. After the development and validation of the survey, it was
administered to introductory physics students in various classes in paper–pencil format before and
after traditional lecture-based instruction in relevant concepts. We compared the performance of
students on the survey …