New Practices for Administering and Analyzing the Results of Concept Inventories

Concept inventories can be refined and honed into informative assessment tools to serve instruction. The present paper suggests new practices for administering and analyzing the results of concept inventories. Web-based administration enables broader participation across universities and colleges, and ensures the retention of the full set of data necessary to conduct other analyses. Issues related to the provision of meaningful concept level information are addressed, as are the benefits of making direct comparisons with other measures of performance. The value of administering inventories as pre-tests is examined, and the potential for offering misconception diagnosis based on inventories is explored.