SBIR Phase I: A Value-based Approach for Quantifying Problem Solving Strategies

这个小企业技术转让第一阶段研究项目将开发和实施一个在线的基于绩效的评估系统，用于量化科学问题解决的有效性，其中定量措施可以在解决问题的任务中标准化，从而可以在个人，班级，学校和科学领域进行纵向比较。该研究项目将得出一个度量，结合联合收割机估计的质量的战略，从人工神经网络分析与解决问题的任务的战略成果，开发一个基于价值的度量的解决问题的过程。该指标还将提供一个强有力的衡量战略的价值，采用文件的有效性，实用性和通用性的评估措施，使用现有的数据集超过20万个问题解决的表现，跨越年级水平，从中学到大学。这样一个可扩展的形成性，总结性和程序化的学习评估系统将有广泛的相关性，以帮助教师教学，通过对学生解决问题的进度进行持续、实时的形成性评估，学生可以学习，管理员可以做出明智的数据驱动决策，这是一个在当今课堂上不经常或不严格评估的维度，但却是21世纪世纪技能的关键组成部分。该系统将影响各级科学教育，并将允许跨科学领域，教室，教师和学校系统的问题解决的累积比较，从而有助于重新思考科学问题解决的方式进行系统评估，以及如何将这些技能教学的影响量化。美国化学学会考试研究所、北京高等教育出版社和当地一个学区的替代教育项目的参与将促进这一评估工具商业化途径的发展。

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase 1 research project will develop and implement an on-line performance-based assessment system for quantifying scientific problem solving effectiveness where quantitative measures can be normalized across problem solving tasks allowing longitudinal comparisons to be made across individuals, classes, schools and science domains. The research project will derive a metric that combine estimates of the quality of a strategy that are derived from artificial neural network analysis with the strategic outcomes on problem solving tasks to develop a value-based metric of the problem solving process. This metric will also provide a strong measure of the value of the strategy employed to document the validity, utility, and generality of this assessment measure using an existing dataset of over 200,000 problem solving performances that span grade levels from middle school through the university.Such an extensible formative, summative and programmatic assessment system of learning will have broad relevance for helping teachers to teach, students to learn, and administrators to make informed data-driven decisions through the continual, and real-time formative evaluation of students' problem solving progress, a dimension not frequently or rigorously assessed in today's classrooms, yet a critical component of 21st century skills. This system will impact all levels of science education and would allow cumulative comparisons of problem solving across science domains, classrooms, teachers and school systems thus helping to re-think the ways scientific problem solving is systemically assessed and how the impact of teaching these skills becomes quantified. The development of a commercialization pathway for this assessment tool will be facilitated by the involvement of the American Chemical Society Examinations Institute, the Higher Education Press in Beijing, and the Alternative Education Program of a local school district.