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Creating the digital logic concept inventory

Published: 10 March 2010 Publication History

Abstract

A concept inventory (CI) is a standardized assessment tool that evaluates how well a student's conceptual framework matches the accepted conceptual framework of a discipline. In this paper, we present our process in creating and evaluating the alpha version of a CI to assess student understanding of digital logic. We have checked the validity and reliability of the CI through an alpha administration, follow-up interviews with students, analysis of administration results, and expert feedback. So far the feedback on the digital logic concept inventory is positive and promising.

References

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M. Ben-Ari. The Concorde doesn't fly anymore. In the Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), keynote address, Feb 2005.
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J. D. Bransford, A. L. Brown, and R. R. Cocking. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1999.
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D. Evans et al. Progress on Concept Inventory Assessment Tools. In the Thirty-Third ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education, pages T4G-1--T4G-8, Nov 2003.
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K. Goldman, P. Gross, C. Heeren, G. Herman, L. Kaczmarczyk, M. C. Loui, and C. Zilles. Identifying Important and Difficult Concepts in Introductory Computing Courses using a Delphi Process. In Proceedings of the 39th annual ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education, pages 256--260. ACM SIGCSE, March 2008.
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R. Hake. Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A Six-thousand-student Survey of Mechanics Test Data for Introductory Physics Courses. Am. J. Physics, 66:64--74, 1998.
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G. L. Herman, L. Kaczmarczyk, M. Loui, and C. Zilles. Proof by Incomplete Enumeration and Other Logical Misconceptions. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Computing Education Research Workshop (ICER 2008), Sydney, Australia, September 6-7 2008.
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G. L. Herman, C. Zilles, and M. C. Loui. Work in progress: Students' Misconceptions about State in Digital Systems. In Proceedings of the Frontiers in Education Conference, San Antonio, TX, October 18-21 2009.
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Cited By

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  • (2024)Using Benchmarking Infrastructure to Evaluate LLM Performance on CS Concept Inventories: Challenges, Opportunities, and CritiquesProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671097(452-468)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
  • (2024)Towards Developing a Concept Inventory to Assess Conceptual Reconstruction in Computer Science Teacher Education Programs2024 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)10.1109/EDUCON60312.2024.10578928(1-3)Online publication date: 8-May-2024
  • (2024)Evaluating the quality of multiple‐choice question pilot database: A global educator‐created tool for concept‐based pharmacology learningPharmacology Research & Perspectives10.1002/prp2.7000412:5Online publication date: 13-Sep-2024
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Reviews

Norian Marranghello

Concept inventory (CI) is an interesting approach to the assessment of students' comprehension of a subject taught in some discipline. CI is aimed at assessing the understanding students acquire of the global concepts of a discipline, rather than testing them for its details. Basically, CI involves choosing a set of fundamental concepts within the scope of a discipline, developing some questions about such concepts for the students to answer, and interviewing the students to check the validity of their answers. The main goal is to verify whether the students really understood each fundamental concept, or if their answers-correct or not-are based on some misconception about a particular subject. CI originated from force concept inventory, proposed in the early 1990s by a team of physics educators. Its application to the computer science field is much more recent. The group led by Zilles has been working on the subject for a number of years. In this paper, they present the construction of a digital logic CI (DLCI). They explain how they selected the topics to be assessed. They also report on a test they administered to students from the University of Illinois at the end of the spring semester of 2009. Based on preliminary data, they discuss the reliability and the validity of the DLCI alpha version. Their presentation is easy to read and systematically sound. Online Computing Reviews Service

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cover image ACM Conferences
SIGCSE '10: Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
March 2010
618 pages
ISBN:9781450300063
DOI:10.1145/1734263
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 10 March 2010

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Author Tags

  1. assessment
  2. concept inventory
  3. curriculum
  4. logic design

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Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Using Benchmarking Infrastructure to Evaluate LLM Performance on CS Concept Inventories: Challenges, Opportunities, and CritiquesProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671097(452-468)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
  • (2024)Towards Developing a Concept Inventory to Assess Conceptual Reconstruction in Computer Science Teacher Education Programs2024 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)10.1109/EDUCON60312.2024.10578928(1-3)Online publication date: 8-May-2024
  • (2024)Evaluating the quality of multiple‐choice question pilot database: A global educator‐created tool for concept‐based pharmacology learningPharmacology Research & Perspectives10.1002/prp2.7000412:5Online publication date: 13-Sep-2024
  • (2023)A Grounded Conceptual Model for Ownership Types in RustProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36228417:OOPSLA2(1224-1252)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
  • (2023)Taking Stock of Concept Inventories in Computing Education: A Systematic Literature ReviewProceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3568813.3600120(397-415)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
  • (2023)Moving Beyond VHDL in Introductory Computer Architecture Courses: An Exploration of MyHDL as a Modern Alternative2023 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10342910(1-9)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2023
  • (2023)An Agile Concept Inventory Methodology to Detect Large Sets of Student Misconceptions in Programming Language CoursesResponsive and Sustainable Educational Futures10.1007/978-3-031-42682-7_1(1-15)Online publication date: 28-Aug-2023
  • (2022)Making Hay from Wheats: A Classsourcing Method to Identify MisconceptionsProceedings of the 22nd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3564721.3564726(1-7)Online publication date: 17-Nov-2022
  • (2021)Identifying Informatively Easy and Informatively Hard ConceptsACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/347796822:1(1-28)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
  • (2021)Uses, Revisions, and the Future of Validated Assessments in Computing Education: A Case Study of the FCS1 and SCS1Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research10.1145/3446871.3469744(60-68)Online publication date: 16-Aug-2021
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