wikipedia | A concept inventory is a criterion-referenced test designed to evaluate whether a student has an accurate working knowledge
of a specific set of concepts. To ensure interpretability, it is common
to have multiple items that address a single idea. Typically, concept
inventories are organized as multiple-choice tests
in order to ensure that they are scored in a reproducible manner, a
feature that also facilitates administration in large classes. Unlike a
typical, teacher-made multiple-choice test, questions and response
choices on concept inventories are the subject of extensive research.
The aims of the research include ascertaining (a) the range of what
individuals think a particular question is asking and (b) the most
common responses to the questions. Concept inventories are evaluated to
ensure test reliability and validity.
In its final form, each question includes one correct answer and
several distractors. The distractors are incorrect answers that are
usually (but not always) based on students' commonly held
misconceptions.[1]
Ideally, a score on a criterion-referenced test reflects the amount
of content knowledge a student has mastered. Criterion-referenced tests
differ from norm-referenced tests
in that (in theory) the former is not used to compare an individual's
score to the scores of the group. Ordinarily, the purpose of a
criterion-referenced test is to ascertain whether a student mastered a
predetermined amount of content knowledge; upon obtaining a test score
that is at or above a cutoff score,
the student can move on to study a body of content knowledge that
follows next in a learning sequence. In general, item difficulty values
ranging between 30% and 70% are best able to provide information about
student understanding.
Distractors are often based on ideas commonly held by students, as
determined by years of research on misconceptions. Test developers often
research student misconceptions by examining students' responses to
open-ended essay questions and conducting "think-aloud" interviews with
students. The distractors chosen by students help researchers understand
student thinking and give instructors insights into students' prior
knowledge (and, sometimes, firmly held beliefs). This foundation in
research underlies instrument construction and design, and plays a role
in helping educators obtain clues about students' ideas, scientific misconceptions, and didaskalogenic, that is, teacher-induced confusions and conceptual lacunae that interfere with learning.
