Work in progress - A web-based system for the delivery and analysis of course concept inventories

A commonly-reported observation is that some seemingly academically well-prepared students struggle with their studies once they reach the mid-points of their degrees. Furthermore, these same students often report excessive study times for courses and appear unduly stressed. We hypothesise that these students have misunderstood core concepts. We describe work in progress to develop a tool which delivers a test of core concepts in a subject and automatically marks individual students´ attempts. The development specifications for this tool also require the ability to analyze the results to provide the lecturer with a quantitative measure of the level of class understanding over a range of core concepts. By delivering and analyzing pre- and post-tests, such a tool can also facilitate the quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of particular teaching interventions or student engagement strategies. It is also intended that the tool could be used over successive years to reliably quantify entry standards into various courses.