ABSTRACT
This chapter examines learning gains between pre- and posttests for the four cohorts of students whose teachers participated in the Elevate study. It begins by providing the teachers with an opportunity to learn about the structure of the ordered multiple-choice test items by showing them a sample item that had distractors that mapped onto different levels of the random mutations dimensions. The Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection (CINS) assessment items were developed out of open response data from undergraduate students that were then used to identify common student alternative conceptions to be included in the multiple-choice responses; item functioning was later evaluated with biology and non-biology majors. The preceding analysis helps see mean shifts in student learning but does not answer where the actual learning happened with respect to the learning progressions. The use of an assessment in helping teachers identify students' alternative conceptions rests in part on the attractiveness of the item distractors.
