Effects Of Sex And Ethnicity On Performance On The Materials Concept Inventory

This paper describes results on using the Materials Concept Inventory in an introductory materials course. The validity of the MCI is confirmed by correlation with student course grades and student self-assessment of understanding. However, the reliability of the instrument is low, and content analysis suggests that the low reliability is related to the inclusion of a large number of concepts within the instrument. Results by sex i show that women score lower than men, despite no difference in academic ability. Results for differences by ethnicity are ambiguous due to the low numbers of students in some of the groups. Overall, the results highlight the importance of developing concept inventories by maintaining a narrow focus on a specific area of conceptual understanding within a particular field. The results also point to the potential role that the context of the items has on performance, although considerably more work is needed in this area.