The role of confidence in Ordered Multiple Choice items about the universe’s expansion

The Big Bang theory being the currently most accepted theory describing the evolution of the universe has, therefore, formed our modern scientific worldview. Imparting this to students through science teaching is a frequent request in science literacy discussion (e.g., American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993; Schecker et al., 2004). Furthermore, the interest of young people in astrophysical and cosmological topics is aboveaverage, irrespective of their country or gender (Schreiner & Sjøberg, 2004). But apparently, there is a need for better education development concerning better approaches for teaching certain topics in modern physics such as cosmology (Schecker et al., 2004). A common basis hereof is often the prior investigation of students’ conceptions (Ausubel, 1968; Anderson, 2007). When teaching cosmology, the expansion of the universe is a very important aspect as one of the three pillars of the Big Bang theory. To assess students’ cognitive level of understanding hereof, follow their progression in an efficient and not time consuming way and, thus, to adapt and improve teaching, there is a need for easily applicable and evaluable tests.