The project develops a test, called the Energy Concept Inventory (ECI), to assess student qualitative understanding of energy concepts. The ECI is similar in design and purpose to the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). For ease of use, the ECI has a multiple-choice format that forces discrimination of scientific aspects of energy storage and transfer from students' common sense alternatives. Like the FCI, the ECI is intended for use in comparative studies of student knowledge and learning at all grade levels from middle school to graduate school. Moreover, the ECI assesses aspects of energy understanding that are essential to chemistry and biology as well as physics.
