Needs Assessment of Chemistry Instructors for Educational Measurement Professional Development Materials

化学(12)本项目正在大学一级的化学教育工作者社区内进行需求分析，以确定该社区对教育测量和评估的理解程度。预计结果将阐明这一领域内今后专业发展活动的富有成效的途径。分析分两个阶段进行。在第一阶段，焦点小组一级的工作允许为更大规模的调查工作设定参数，从而为第二阶段开发更广泛的调查工具。在第二阶段，利用实地调查进行需求分析，以衡量社区内目前与评估有关的教育做法与对化学领域评估的更透彻了解之间的差距。这一阶段利用随机分层的教师样本，根据机构类型和多年的化学教学经验。通过这一策略，能够识别影响人们学习教育工具的因素。这个项目的智力价值体现在三个方面。首先，将与焦点小组一起进行的研究提供了对当前知识与关于评估方法的某些可定义的理想状态之间的差距的定性描述。本研究可以找出可以进行更大规模调查工作的方法，并对教师教育测量知识的性质设定一个初步的期望水平。其次，大规模实地调查需要开发工具，以便在目标受众不仅可能不熟悉材料的用途，甚至不熟悉常用词汇时进行需求评估。最后，对大规模需求评估调查的分析预计将提供化学教育界在了解评估方法和局限性方面的情况。对于一个大型教育社区来说，这一快照可以作为了解相关社区--在其他科学学科和其他水平的化学教育--的专业发展需求的原型。这项工作的更广泛影响主要来自项目的规模和正在评估的需求的性质。大学水平的教学主要由教职员工进行，几乎没有接受过包括评估在内的教育主题的正式培训。化学在这方面代表了一个典型的群体，因此这项研究的结果可能会提供：(A)了解其他科学领域的专业发展需求的模型；(B)设计适当的专业发展材料并对其有效性进行有意义评估的假设；(C)洞察相关STEM领域的研究人员如何进行类似的需求评估。预计将确定可能影响教师对教育工具(在这种情况下是为了评估)的认识的广泛因素。了解这些因素可能对其他人在开发模板以评估化学家和其他与任何教育方法相关的科学家的需求时很有用。

Chemistry (12)This project is carrying out a needs analysis within the community of chemical educators at the college level in order to identify the level of understanding of educational measurement and assessment by this community. The results are expected to elucidate fruitful avenues for future professional development activities within this field. The analysis is being carried out in two stages. In the first stage, focus group level work allows the setting of parameters for larger scale survey work and thus allows for the development of broader survey tools for the second phase. For this second phase a field survey is used to conduct a needs analysis that measures the gap within the community between current educational practices related to assessment and a more thorough understanding of assessment within chemistry. This phase utilizes random stratified samples of instructors in terms of both institutional type and years of experience teaching chemistry. With this strategy, factors that influence how people learn about educational tools are able to be identified.The intellectual merit of this project lies along three vectors. First, research to be done with focus groups provides a qualitative-level description of the gap between current knowledge and some definable ideal state of knowledge about assessment methodology. This research can identify ways that larger scale survey work can be conducted and sets an initial level of expectation about the nature of faculty knowledge of educational measurement. Second, the large scale field survey requires the development of tools that allow the assessment of needs when the target audience is potentially unfamiliar with not only the utility of the material but even the vocabulary commonly used. Finally, the analysis of the large-scale needs assessment survey is expected to provide a snapshot of where the chemistry education community is in terms of understanding of assessment methodologies and limitations. This snapshot, for a large educational community, can serve as a prototype for understanding the professional development needs of related communities - in other scientific disciplines and at other levels of chemistry education.The broader impact of this work derives primarily from the scale of the project and the nature of the needs being assessed. College-level instruction is largely carried out by faculty with little formal training in educational topics, including assessment. Chemistry represents a typical community in this respect, so results from this study are likely to provide (a) models for understanding professional development needs in other science fields; (b) hypotheses for designing appropriate professional development materials and conducting meaningful assessment of their efficacy and; (c) insight into how researchers in related STEM fields may conduct similar needs assessments. A broad spectrum of factors that potentially influence faculty awareness of educational tools (in this case for assessment) is anticipated to be identified. Knowing these factors is likely to be useful to others in developing templates for assessing needs of chemists and other scientists related to any educational methodology.