Biological Concepts Instrument (BCI): A diagnostic tool for revealing student thinking

This may be of great interest to Teachers of advanced pre University Biology courses e.g AP, IB, UK A LEVEL, Irish senior etc

Some recent research done in Switzerland was led by Elsbeth Stern and Ernst Hafen of ETH

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176906&type=printable

They used the Biological Concepts Instrument (BCI): A diagnostic tool for revealing student thinking
Michael W. Klymkowsky*☀, Sonia M. Underwood** & R. Kathleen Garvin-Doxas***

and this showed many areas where student conceptual understanding needs improvement and interesting sources of misconceptions.

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1012/1012.4501.pdf

I have extracted the 28 Multiple Choice Questions of this Instrument into this Google form

https://forms.gle/dye4HAXr59JGXgwR8 also they are available as plain text

https://docs.google.com/document/d/140gs4Tm0dcJ6QYYh-zWbe48Q30XvQB4V7Tm0gClzLUc/edit?usp=sharing

You could use these great questions and data to elicit student misconceptions and then socially construct understanding through discussion.This could be a crucial step inhelping you student to prepare for their coming end of course examinations.

Also if you are interested in sharing your student responses anonymously by using the google form. The form has 28 MCQ that take about 45 minutes. Yous as a teacher would be the only one who knows your student responses by giving them a code letter and number e.g D13 If you use D to identify your school. This data will ONLY help Teachers see patterns of important misconceptions in our subject. IN NO WAY WILL IT BE USED FOR RESEARCH OR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES. If you are interested get in touch or just use the questions for your own needs JUST credit the AUTHORS AS THE FORM DOES.

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