(Post last updated June 1, 2021)
Review panel summary
The Krause et al. Chemistry Concept Inventory (CCI) is a 40-item multiple-choice test that was designed to assess student understanding of general chemistry topics. Two items associated with each of 10 first semester and 10 second semester general chemistry topics are included in the instrument. The CCI has been evaluated with university students enrolled in a general chemistry course sequence in the U.S. [1, 2]. Literature to date has shown insufficient evidence in support of the final version of the CCI instrument generating valid data. Very few sources of evidence for validity of the instrument data have been found in the literature. Relations to other variables validity was established by identifying a correlation between the scores obtained with the CCI and the final course grades, as well as by identifying significant differences in the gains between students taught general chemistry by different instructors. Coefficient alpha was used to estimate the single administration reliability. The coefficient alpha values ranged from 0.47 to 0.68 for the administration of the final version of the instrument [1, 2]. It was unclear, however, whether these values were associated with the pre- or post-administration of the instrument.
Recommendations for use
Limited evidence for validity and reliability was established with the data from the studies describing how the instrument was developed and evaluated [1, 2]. If using the instrument as developed, users are cautioned to conduct their own examination for the evidence of validity and reliability for the data generated.
Details from panel review
Additional aspects of validity and reliability have been investigated for the data generated by the pilot administrations of the CCI [1]. Chemistry and engineering faculty selected topics for the instrument from both semesters of the general chemistry course sequence, which is some evidence of the internal structure validity. A literature search was carried out by the developers to identify misconceptions and distractors for the CCI instrument. Discrimination index and difficulty index were used to evaluate the items in the first version of the instrument, but the development studies did not present any results for these analyses or how these results were used to inform changes to the pilot version of the instrument [1, 2]. Additionally, eleven students were interviewed about 7 out of the 40 questions of a pilot version to establish the response process validity for part of the instrument. The information from the interviews was used to modify and improve the items. The modified wording was tested with teaching assistants. More robust evidence for the response process validity is suggested by conducting interviews with students on all 40 items of the instrument, as well as testing the revised items with the population for which the instrument was intended (i.e., general chemistry students). No response process interviews have been conducted to evaluate the items in the final version of the CCI.
References
[1] Krause, S., Birk, J., Bauer, R., Jenkins, B., & Pavelich, M. J. Development, Testing, and Application of a Chemistry Concept Inventory. 34th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Savannah, GA, October 20-23, T1G-1-5.
[2] Pavelich, M., Jenkins, B., Birk, J., Bauer, R., & Krause, S. Development of a Chemistry Concept Inventory for Use in Chemistry, Materials and other Engineering Courses. Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, 9.427.1-8.