Development of a Concept Inventory of Inheritance for High School Agricultural Education

Abstract

This study developed three versions of a concept inventory of inheritance tailored for high school agricultural education. These inventories can be used as formative assessments to inform teachers about students’ understanding of inheritance within the context of agriculture or as summative assessments to evaluate learning outcomes. Existing concept inventories in genetics related concepts lack real-world agricultural applications. Our inventories incorporate areas within agriculture, such as animal systems and plant systems, providing students with a deeper understanding of the concept of inheritance. Developed primarily by high school agriculture teachers, these inventories reflect real-world experiences and observations, offer valuable insights into students’ misconceptions, gauge preparation, measure instructional effectiveness, and provide a comprehensive view of learning progressions. We utilized confirmatory factor analysis, Rasch model, and distractor analysis to examine the psychometric properties of the concept inventories.