We discuss the development and validation of the long version of a conceptual multiple-choice survey instrument called the Survey of Thermodynamic Processes and First and Second Laws-Long suitable for introductory physics courses. This version of the survey instrument is a longer version of the original shorter version developed and validated…

Most biology undergraduates learn about mutations in multiple classrooms throughout their college career. Understanding personalised genome test results, genome editing controversies, and the appearance of new variants of viruses or antibiotic resistant bacteria all require foundational knowledge about mutations. However, the abstract nature of…

This research goal to develop a multiple-choice closed-ended test to assessing and evaluate students' digital literacy skills. The sample in this study were students at MTsN 1 Blitar City who were selected using a purposive sampling technique. The test was also validated by experts, namely 2 Doctors of Physics and Science from Yogyakarta State…

Assessments of scientific reasoning that capture the intertwining aspects of conceptual, procedural and epistemic knowledge are often associated with intensive qualitative analyses of student responses to open-ended questions, work products, interviews, discourse and classroom observations. While such analyses provide evaluations of students'…

Making inferences and reasoning with new scientific information is critical for successful performance in biology coursework. Thus, identifying students who are weak in these skills could allow the early provision of additional support and course placement recommendations to help students develop their reasoning abilities, leading to better…

A multi-institution collaborative team of Australian chemistry education researchers, teaching a total of over 3000 first year chemistry students annually, has explored a tool for diagnosing students' prior conceptions as they enter tertiary chemistry courses. Five core topics were selected and clusters of diagnostic items were assembled linking…

The basis for understanding neurophysiology is understanding ion movement across cell membranes. Students in introductory courses recognize ion concentration gradients as a driving force for ion movement but struggle to simultaneously account for electrical charge gradients. We developed a 17-multiple-choice item assessment of students'…

Geoscience education researchers have considerable need for criterion-referenced, easy-to-administer, easy-to-score, conceptual surveys for undergraduates taking introductory science survey courses in order for faculty to monitor the learning impacts of innovative teaching. In response, this study establishes the reliability and validity of a…

Standardized conceptual assessment represents a widely used tool for educational researchers interested in student learning within the standard undergraduate physics curriculum. For example, these assessments are often used to measure student learning across educational contexts and instructional strategies. However, to support the large-scale…

Multiple-choice questions are an important part of large-scale summative assessments, such as the advanced placement (AP) chemistry exam. However, past AP chemistry exam items often lacked the ability to test conceptual understanding and higher-order cognitive skills. The redesigned AP chemistry exam shows a distinctive shift in item types toward…

We introduce the Newtonian Gravity Concept Inventory (NGCI), a 26-item multiple-choice instrument to assess introductory general education college astronomy ("Astro 101") student understanding of Newtonian gravity. This paper describes the development of the NGCI through four phases: Planning, Construction, Quantitative Analysis, and…

We have designed, developed, and validated a 17-question Meiosis Concept Inventory (Meiosis CI) to diagnose student misconceptions on meiosis, which is a fundamental concept in genetics. We targeted large introductory biology and genetics courses and used published methodology for question development, which included the validation of questions by…

As part of an ongoing investigation of students' learning in first semester upper-division quantum mechanics, we needed a high-quality conceptual assessment instrument for comparing outcomes of different curricular approaches. The process of developing such a tool started with converting a preliminary version of a 14-item open-ended quantum…

In this article we discuss the findings of our research on students' understanding of vector concepts in problems without physical context. First, we develop a complete taxonomy of the most frequent errors made by university students when learning vector concepts. This study is based on the results of several test administrations of open-ended…

"Item difficulty modelling" is a technique used for a number of purposes such as to support future item development, to explore validity in relation to the constructs that influence difficulty and to predict the difficulty of items. This research attempted to explore the factors influencing question difficulty in a general qualification…