The concept of the Concept Inventory assessment instrument

The well-known Force Concept Inventory (FCI) instrument has been in use over the last 15 years, and is now credited with stimulating reform of physics education. An instructor can give the FCI as both a pre-test and as a post-test to produce data that can be used in a continuous improvement manner to evaluate the effectiveness of various instructional strategies. This presentation reviews the development and history of the FCI from the standpoint of what makes it so effective for this use. This presentation is a lead-in to four new Concept Inventories, two in thermodynamics (one for a first year course and one for a second year course), one in signals and processing, and one in strength of materials. Other Concept Inventories are known to exist or are being created (e.g., wave phenomenon for electrical engineers and energy principles in physics).