Learning Progressions in Science: Analyzing and Deconstructing the Multiple Dimensions in Assessment

评估是确保科学课堂教与学取得成功的关键工具。因此，为了实现当前改革努力的愿景，必须开发以下评估：(a)衡量对这些改革至关重要的高阶认知技能，以及(b)以易于获取和解释的方式报告结果。通过这个项目，研究人员将开发基于互联网的评估，以获取这些学习成果。这些评估可以通过提供体现当今科学课堂所期望的学习成果和表现的有形产品来影响政策和实践。这些措施还将确保所有学生都得到公平的评估。这个项目有可能使学生以各种方式表达他们的知识和技能，这些方式比传统评估中的典型方式要求更低，更具创造性。研究人员将开发评估材料，以符合下一代科学标准的科学论证实践，模式的交叉概念，以及以下每个基础中学科学领域的内容-物理，生命和地球科学。研究人员将与管理人员和教育工作者密切合作，以确保材料与教师的需求相关联和一致。数据将从来自加利福尼亚和亚利桑那州不同种族、文化和语言学区的初高中学生中收集。要开发的关键措施包括将关于模式的问题嵌入到九个现有情景（任务）和关于自然资源的新情景中。该小组将开发可以开放式和选择性回答形式使用的评估，以提高其对教师的诊断性理解的有用性，并提高其在课堂上总结性使用的效率。还将从教师那里收集数据，以帮助编写解释性材料。教师将能够实时获得学生的反馈，并评估学生在每个科学实践、横切概念和提到的领域中的学习进展。该小组将使用BEAR评估系统来开发和完善评估材料。该系统是一种综合的评估方法，旨在提供与认知和发展目标相关的学生工作的有意义的解释。研究人员将收集经验证据来开发和改进评估材料，然后收集信度和效度证据来支持其使用。总的来说，项目回应数据将从两个地区的数千名学生中收集。学生的反应数据将使用多维项目反应理论模型进行分析。探索研究preK-12项目（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高preK-12学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和实证依据。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Assessments are a crucial tool to enable the success of teaching and learning in science classrooms. Hence, to realize the vision of current reform efforts assessments must be developed that (a) measure the higher order cognitive skills that are essential to those reforms, and (b) that report results in ways that are readily accessible and interpretable. Through this project, researchers will develop internet-based assessments that capture such learning outcomes. These assessments can influence policy and practice by providing tangible products that exemplify the kind of learning outcomes and performances expected in today's science classrooms. The measures will also ensure that all students are assessed fairly. This project has the potential to enable students to express their knowledge and skills in a variety of ways which are less demanding and more creative than typical in traditional assessments.Researchers will develop assessment materials aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards practice of scientific argumentation, the cross-cutting concept of patterns, and content in each of the following foundational middle school science domains - physical, life, and Earth sciences. Researchers will work closely with administrators and educators to ensure the relevance and alignment of materials to teachers’ needs. Data will be gathered from middle and high school students from ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse school districts in California and Arizona. Key measures to be developed include embedding questions about patterns into the nine existing scenarios (tasks) and in new scenarios about natural resources. The team will develop assessments that can be used in both open-ended and selected response formats, to enhance their usefulness to teachers for diagnostic understanding, and their efficiency for summative classroom use. Data will also be gathered from teachers, to help develop interpretational materials. Teachers will have access, in real time, to their own students’ responses, and estimates of students’ performance on learning progressions within each of the science practices, crosscutting concepts and domains mentioned. The team will use the BEAR Assessment System to develop and refine assessment materials. This system is an integrated approach to developing assessments that seeks to provide meaningful interpretations of student work relative to cognitive and developmental goals. The researchers will gather empirical evidence to develop and improve the assessment materials, and then gather reliability and validity evidence to support their use. In total, item response data will be collected from several thousand students across the two districts. Student response data will be analyzed using multidimensional item response theory models. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.