Development of a Suite of Assessment Tools for Measuring Students' Experimental Modeling Skills

实验课程提供了参与实践和科学核心思想的重要机会。实验课程环境通常有大量的实验设备，灵活的课堂安排，较低的学生/教师比例，以及合作工作的机会。所有这些特点都有助于促进学生参与一系列科学实践（例如，提出问题，设计和开展实验，分析数据，开发和完善模型，以及向同龄人展示结果）。尽管许多实验课程有丰富的机会和资源，但人们经常关注这些课程如何有效地发挥其潜力。最近的许多努力都试图改善学生在实验课上的学习体验。这个重要的项目将通过开发易于实施的评估来衡量学生在实验建模（核心科学实践之一）方面的能力，从而支持全国各地的这些努力。评估工具将为教师和教育研究者提供一种衡量教学效果的方法，从而允许对实验课程中不同的教育教学法进行评估和改进。该项目将开发、验证并支持一种易于实施和解释的评估方法，用于高年级实验课程的实验建模技能。本项目将遵循经典测试理论的理论模型，指导两种耦合多响应评价仪器的开发。这些仪器将衡量学生在高年级构建、测试和完善实验系统和测量仪器模型的能力。这两次评估将集中在高年级物理实验室的两个共同内容领域，模拟电子学和光学。该项目的成果不仅将为教师提供可操作的证据，帮助他们改进课程，而且还将使研究人员深入了解学生如何发展任何物理实验研究所需的建模技能。

Laboratory courses offer significant opportunities for engagement in the practices and core ideas of science. Laboratory course environments typically have extensive lab equipment, flexible classroom arrangements, low student/teacher ratios, and opportunities for collaborative work. All of these characteristics help promote students' engagement in a range of scientific practices (e.g., asking questions, designing and carrying out experiments, analyzing data, developing and refining models, and presenting results to peers). Despite the abundant opportunities and resources in many laboratory courses, concerns are frequently raised about how effective such courses are at fulfilling their potential. Many recent efforts have attempted to improve the learning experience for students in lab courses. This important project will support these efforts across the country by developing easy-to-implement assessments for measuring students' ability in modeling of experiments, one of the core scientific practices. The assessment instruments will give instructors and education researchers a way to measure the impact of instruction, and thus allow for evaluation and refinements of different educational pedagogies in lab courses. This project will develop, validate, and support an easily implementable and interpretable assessment for experimental modeling skills in upper-division lab courses. The project will follow the theoretical model of Classical Test Theory to guide the development of two coupled multiple-response assessment instruments. These instruments will measure students' ability to construct, test, and refine models of experimental systems and measurement apparatus at the upper-division level. The two assessments will focus on two common content areas in upper-division physics labs, analog electronics and optics. The products of the project will not only give instructors actionable evidence to help them refine their courses, but also give researchers insight into how students develop the modeling skills required for any experimental investigation in physics.