Resource Letter: RBAI-1: Research-based Assessment Instruments in Physics and Astronomy

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive guide to research-based assessment instruments in physics and astronomy, highlighting their development, validation, and role in education reform to help instructors select appropriate tools.

Contribution

It offers an organized overview of all content RBAIs in physics and astronomy, detailing their validation, format, and instructional level, facilitating better assessment choices.

Findings

RBAIs are rigorously developed using student ideas and expert input.

They serve as universal measures of student understanding in physics and astronomy.

RBAIs significantly impact education reform efforts.

Abstract

This resource letter provides a guide to research-based assessment instruments (RBAIs) of physics and astronomy content. These are standardized assessments that were rigorously developed and revised using student ideas and interviews, expert input, and statistical analyses. RBAIs have had a major impact on physics and astronomy education reform by providing a universal and convincing measure of student understanding that instructors can use to assess and improve the effectiveness of their teaching. In this resource letter, we present an overview of all content RBAIs in physics and astronomy by topic, research validation, instructional level, format, and themes, to help faculty find the best assessment for their course.