Moving beyond Subject Matter Knowledge: Assessing Elementary Teachers? Content Knowledge for Teaching Science

该项目的目标是更好地理解对于开发有效和可靠的教学内容知识（CKT）科学评估至关重要的关键设计特征。科学教育专业发展前景充满了各种学习机会，以提高K-12科学教师有效支持学生学习的能力。然而，由于缺乏对科学教师知识的有效和可靠的评估，这一领域受到了阻碍，这些评估可用于决定教师知识的哪些方面应该成为这些专业学习机会的重点。这个项目将为在该领域就发展小学教师知识评估的最有效方法达成共识迈出重要的一步，以便为正在进行的科学专业发展工作提供信息。本研究旨在支持制定指标的努力，这些指标可用于在教师准备和专业发展环境中监测和改善小学科学教师的学习。该项目的目的是建立在科学教师基于实践的知识的重要性的有力证据基础上，这表明该领域不仅要有能够评估教师的学科知识的措施，而且要有能够评估他们如何教授这些学科的知识的措施。本验证性研究的重点是检验两种类型的科学测量——基于实践的CKT项目和主题知识项目——如何评估小学教师知识的不同方面，以及这些测量与教师专业准备和经验的其他指标之间的关系。这项工作直接解决了国家研究委员会报告《监测成功的K-12教育进展：一个国家在进步吗？》中的指标6，即教师的科学和数学内容知识。该项目将对150名3-6年级的教师进行评估，使用开发的测量科学CKT的项目，然后对其中24名教师进行认知访谈，以探索项目的内容效度，并探索科学CKT与教师质量的其他衡量指标（如教学经验、自我效能感和自我报告的教学特定概念的信心）之间的关系。

The goal of this project is to develop a better understanding about the key design features important for developing valid and reliable assessments of Content Knowledge for Teaching (CKT) science. The science education professional development landscape is full of a variety of learning opportunities to enhance K-12 science teachers' abilities to effectively support their students' learning. However, the field is hampered by a lack of valid and reliable assessments of science teachers' knowledge that can be used for making decisions about which aspects of teachers' knowledge should be the focus of these professional learning opportunities. This project will provide an important step towards building consensus in the field about the most productive approaches for developing assessments of elementary teachers' knowledge in order to inform ongoing professional development efforts in science. This study is poised to support efforts to develop indicators that can be used to monitor and improve elementary science teachers' learning in both teacher preparation and professional development settings.The project is designed to build upon the robust evidentiary base for the importance of science teachers' practice-based knowledge, which suggests that it is important for the field to have measures that can assess not only teachers' subject matter knowledge, but also their knowledge about how to teach these subjects. This validation study concentrates on examining how two types of science measures -- practice-based CKT items and subject matter knowledge items -- assess distinct aspects of elementary teacher's knowledge and how these measures relate to other indicators of teachers' professional preparation and experience. This work directly addresses indicator 6 , teachers' science and mathematics content knowledge for teaching, of the National Research Council report Monitoring Progress Toward Successful K-12 Education: A Nation Advancing? The project will assess 150 grades 3-6 teachers with items developed to measure science CKT, followed by cognitive interviews of 24 of these teachers to explore the content validity of the items and explore the relationship among science CKT and other measures of teacher quality such as years of experience teaching, self-efficacy, and self-reported confidence in teaching particular concepts.