The Development of the Redox Concept Inventory as a Measure of Students’ Symbolic and Particulate Redox Understandings and Confidence

Abstract

This article describes the development of the Redox Concept Inventory (ROXCI) as a measure of students’ understandings and confidence of both the symbolic and particulate domains of oxidation–reduction (redox) reactions. The ROXCI was created using a mixed-methods design in which the items were developed based upon themes that emerged from the analysis of semi-structured student interviews. The final version of the ROXCI was administered to first- and second-semester general chemistry students post-instruction and post-assessment on redox chemistry. The results include qualitative and quantitative evidence for the content, response process, and association types validity of the data, as well as individual item function and descriptive statistics for each student sample. In conjunction with the validity evidence, reliability was evaluated via a test–retest study. This included the results of the stability of (i) the total scores and average confidence; (ii) the difficulty and discrimination indices per item; and (iii) the students’ multiple-choice responses. In addition to the evidence for validity and reliability, results from the ROXCI regarding students’ understandings and confidence about redox concepts are discussed, including students’ misconceptions about oxidation numbers, the surface features of chemical equations, electron transfer, the role of the spectator ion, the dynamic reaction process, electrostatic interactions, and bonding. Implications for teaching and learning are discussed.

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