(560d) Development, Implementation, Observations and Abandonment of a Comprehensive Concept Inventory in Chemical Engineering

In an attempt to better assess our entire chemical engineering curriculum for both self-analysis and as a form of direct assessment for ABET, the Chemical Engineering Department at Bucknell University has development and implemented a Comprehensive Concept Inventory (CCI).  Over the past 5 years, we have worked with every member of our department to create and implement the CCI.  Faculty members identified a list of key concepts from each course and worked in groups of two or three to develop multiple choice concept questions.  As a department, we narrowed the concepts and questions down to a total of 30 that covered the key curriculum and represented concepts we believe every chemical engineer should understand by graduation.  The authors hosted a workshop on CCI development at ASEE in Pittsburgh in 2008.  The CCI was implemented first to all faculty in the department and subsequently to the last four senior classes within one month of graduation.  After careful analysis of the efforts and results of this implementation, we have decided to abandon the use of the CCI instrument at this time. 

This paper will present the CCI concepts, questions and results from the past four years.  We will explain what we believe the CCI results tell us, what they do not, and why we are abandoning the use of the CCI at this time.  We hope these results will initiate a lively discussion of the potential future uses of instruments such as the CCI for both ABET and self-assessment purposes.