116 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 5 INTRODUCTION Molecular Biology and Genetics are taught to undergraduate students at the second and third year level of their University of Canberra de- grees. The assumption is, particularly for the third year students who have passed previous units/subjects in fundamental chemistry, biology and biochemistry that the concepts and many of the details confronted in the more specialised discipline areas like genetics/molecular biology will be familiar. Anecdotally, this has not been true and the specialised language, for a majority of students, leads to a loss of engagement with the content of the unit and hence the learning outcomes. While there are issues around retention of knowledge from previously studied foundation units, it seems a bigger problem is that students Felicia Zhang University of Canberra, Australia Brett A. Lidbury Australian National University, Australia Evaluating a Genetics Concept Inventory ABSTRACT This chapter examines the reliability and validity of a subset of the Genetics concept inventory (S. Elrod) to discriminate good students from poor performing students in the undergraduate units Genetics and Molecular Biology taught at the University of Canberra, Australia. These two units went through a series of reforms since 2005. These reforms included the implementation of a number of online and tutorial language exercises and strategies designed to promote scientifc language competence and subsequent genetics learning. The effect of these interventions was analyzed through grade and assessment perfor- mance comparisons with earlier traditionally taught Genetics cohorts as well using the genetic concept inventory. The genetic concept inventory questions used at the University of Canberra have been found to be reliable and valid according to a number of statistical tests. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-062-0.ch005