Concept Inventory Assessment Instruments for Circuits Courses

Electric Circuits course is a core component of undergraduate curricula in electrical engineering programs worldwide. The Electric Circuits Concept Inventory (ECCI) is a set of multiple-choice questions that we are developing to measure students’ understanding of fundamental concepts such as DC and AC Circuits. First and Second-order circuits, etc. and Advanced Circuit analysis topics are covered. These questions do not test problem solving steps but test major concepts and ability of students to understand the concepts in the context of the problem and apply the required methods to solve the problems. We plan to collect and collate all similar concepts questions (generated by others and ourselves) and build up an ECCI test database that can be used in every offering of Circuits course at all universities who wish to participate. We also encourage other faculty to adopt the test. This test fulfills the United States Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) requirement for assessment. It also helps track the effectiveness of teaching styles by testing whether the students are learning the basic concepts in the course. In this paper, we first review some assessment instruments used previously in the Circuits courses. We classify the major ideas and concepts that need to be tested. Then we present several examples of possible multiple-choice questions designed to test fundamental concepts which students are expected to learn in the Circuits courses. We examine the various concepts tested in each question and relate its importance to a quality overall course in Electric Circuits. We also report on the outcomes of these new assessment instruments at the conference.