To improve our ability to place students along each dimension, to explore the
relationships of the dimensions, and to document how these dimensions are affected
by particular learning activities, there is a clear need for new assessment tools. The
tools we developed in the course of studying students’ conceptions of sampling
distributions are quite different from the types of assessment typically used to
evaluate students learning of this topic. Figures 6 and 7 display two items we have
used to assess students’ ability to apply their understanding of sampling distributions
to problems with a context. While these multiple-choice items are quick to score,
they require students to apply their knowledge and allow deeper diagnostic analysis
of student responses than many traditional items. Additional assessment tools are
needed to better reveal the complexity of students’ reasoning about sampling
distributions.