Development of an engineering strength of material concept inventory assessment instrument

This paper discusses development of an instrument for assessing undergraduate student understanding of fundamental strength of materials concepts. The instrument was modeled after the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) by David Hestenes and others. Like the FCI, the strength of materials concept inventory is brief requires no computation and should be repeatable across broad student populations. The initial version of the instrument was tested on strength of materials students at the University of Alabama, Texas A&M University and other institutions.