Comparing Student Performance on Low-Stakes and High-Stakes Evaluations of Conceptual Understanding

This Research to Practice Full Paper investigates how student performance during a low-stakes evaluation of conceptual understanding relates to performance during a high stakes evaluation. Concept inventories, like the Dynamics Concept Inventory (DCI), are used to assess student understanding of a specific set of concepts, typically in a low-stakes setting. The DCI was offered for very modest course extra credit at the beginning and end of an introductory dynamics course at a large, research-intensive public university. This represents the low-stakes evaluation. By contrast, a midterm examination administered 12 weeks into the 15 week semester included: 1) a set of short-answer concept questions related to the concepts covered by the DCI and 2) two traditional long-answer problem-solving questions. This midterm examination represents the culmination of student understanding of rigid body dynamics, which is primarily what the DCI covers. It also represents the high-stakes evaluation as this examination strongly influences the students' final grade in the class. The synergy of the relationships between these three evaluations indicate the low-stakes DCI assessment is a valid measure in quantifying student conceptual understanding.