Entwicklung des Concept-Inventory CCCI-422 zu den naturwissenschaftlichen Grundlagen des Klimawandels

Current climate change poses major challenges to our society. A basic understanding of climate change can particularly help people to better assess false or contradictory representations to be able to participate in the social discourse on the topic of climate change. To reliably make statements about the understanding of core content areas on climate change, suitable test instruments are needed. For the development of a concept inventory regarding the scientific principles of climate change (which we call CCCI-422), core content areas were identified, open-ended tasks were developed, and finally distractors and attractors were derived from a total of over 50 interviews. Subsequently, the Concept Inventory was used in several piloting and validation studies, thus collecting different arguments in favor of using the CCCI-422. For example, one study was conducted to formulate an argument for the external validity of the test score interpretation. Theoretically hypothesized differences were also shown in differences in person abilities. In two further studies, arguments for the instructional sensitivity of the Concept Inventory could be formulated. Furthermore, as an argument for construct validity, a one-dimensional as well as a five-dimensional structure can be derived based on dimensional analyses. The five dimensions correspond to the five theoretically derived content areas, with difference weather—climate tending to being the easiest and atmosphere of our Earth being the most difficult content area. Therefore, we argue that the CCCI-422 can be used as a one-dimensional or five-dimensional Concept Inventory depending on the purpose of use. This paper presents the developed Concept Inventory including its development process, which is provided as online material for use.