Trends in topics, use, and development procedures of biology concept inventories

Abstract Since first appearing in the literature in the 1980s, concept inventories have grown in popularity and are used across science fields. This review serves to identify trends in existing biology concept inventories and to identify areas of future development. We address the following research questions: What biology concept inventories have been developed and across which content areas? What development procedures were used in creating these biology concept inventories? We gathered a comprehensive sample of 49 biology concept inventories developed between 1987 and 2021. Most of these inventories were in the subdisciplines of molecular and cellular biology or evolution. We also summarize the development and evaluation procedures we found across biology concept inventories, highlighting areas for growth. We also found that most biology concept inventories tend to be cited modestly but regularly across their lifespans. This review is intended to serve as a resource for those using biology concept inventories and future developers of novel biology concept inventories.