suggest that novices can more easily construct a fundamental understanding of gravity
when it is expressed as a Process, rather than as Matter. Table 4 below shows an example of how a question on
the NGCI Version 1 (originally adapted from an open-response question in Williamson and Willoughby (2012))
was adapted to fit within the Process ontological category for Version 2. This change completely altered the
meaning of the question, since the Version 1 wording of “surface gravity” was meant to refer to the gravitational
field at the surface with choice “d” as correct answer, and the Version 2 wording clearly specifies an
“interaction” with the orbiting body with choice “a” as the correct answer. Additionally, the reasoning statement
provided within each of the choices of Version 1’s question was eliminated because it may not represent all the
possible ideas and reasoning that students use when choosing that particular choice. Once this ontological shift
was implemented, only minor changes were implemented from Version 2 to Version 3. For example, the planets
in the diagram were given shading and the mass labels were eliminated, and the distractor choices were modified
based on student interviews.