  The Colorado Upper-division Electrostatics (CUE) diagnostic was designed as
an open-ended assessment in order to capture elements of student reasoning in
upper-division electrostatics. The diagnostic has been given for many semesters
at several universities resulting in an extensive database of CUE responses. To
increase the utility and scalability of the assessment, we used this database
along with research on students' difficulties to create a multiple-choice
version. The new version explores the viability of a novel test format where
students select multiple responses and can receive partial credit based on the
accuracy and consistency of their selections. This format was selected with the
goal of preserving insights afforded by the open-ended format while exploiting
the logistical advantages of a multiple-choice assessment. Here, we present
examples of the questions and scoring of the multiple-choice CUE as well as
initial analysis of the test's validity, item difficulty, discrimination, and
overall consistency with the open-ended version.
