Developing Open Response Assessments to Evaluate How Undergraduates Engage in Mathematical Sensemaking in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics

开发开放式反应评估来评估本科生如何参与生物学、化学和物理领域的数学意义建构

• 批准号: 2235641
• 负责人: Jennifer Kaplan
• 金额: $ 15.49万
• 依托单位: Middle Tennessee State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-03-15 至 2027-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2235641&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Developing; Open; Response; Assessments; Evaluate

This project aims to serve the national interest by developing new tools to assess how students engage in making sense of quantitative problems in biology, chemistry, and physics. Mathematical sensemaking in science focuses on students’ ability to blend core disciplinary science ideas with cross-cutting mathematical concepts, such as patterns and proportions, while engaging in scientific practices such as computational thinking, making predictions, and reasoning from evidence. Current visions for undergraduate STEM education stress the need to integrate i) key disciplinary ideas and ii) crosscutting concepts with iii) authentic scientific practices, resulting in what is called three-dimensional learning. This requires developing new assessments with the ability to detect when students engage in three-dimensional learning and reveal this to instructors. This project seeks to extend previous work to identify opportunities to observe mathematical sensemaking in science in the classroom. The project plans to develop open-ended questions to explore undergraduate mathematical sensemaking in science using three dimensional learning assessments. This serves the goal of improving STEM education at the undergraduate level by providing engaging and authentic assessments capable of revealing student thinking. Findings from this project should help inform teaching practice in undergraduate STEM courses and help students foster computational thinking skills. The project will target two aims. Aim 1 is to apply an evidence-centered design process to develop open-ended assessment items that elicit mathematical sensemaking in science (MaSS) and align with a three-dimensional learning (3DL) assessment framework. The evidence-centered design approach for the assessments will provide an opportunity to collect validity evidence throughout the process and allow development of similar items across disciplines. Assessment tasks and coding rubrics will be based on frameworks for 3DL and MaSS, and will be iteratively revised to elicit and categorize student MaSS. The project will conduct interviews with undergraduates to examine their MaSS while completing the assessment items, and with college faculty to ensure alignment with disciplinary topics and phenomena common in college courses. Aim 2 is to administer constructed response items across undergraduate science disciplines to explore how undergraduates engage in MaSS across biology, chemistry, and physics. The project will administer the assessment items from Aim 1 at a diverse set of undergraduate institutions to collect student responses. These responses will be used to establish evidence of the validity, reliability, and fairness of the items quantitatively. Further, the responses will be used to explore how undergraduates engage in MaSS in varied science disciplines. The project meets the need for developing rich, formative assessment items for undergraduate 3DL that reveal student thinking, which is essential for instruction aimed to foster MaSS. The project will also advance understanding of how undergraduates integrate thinking about key STEM concepts and mathematics across disciplines by following a 3DL assessment framework. The NSF IUSE: EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.

该项目旨在通过开发新的工具来评估学生如何理解生物、化学和物理中的定量问题，从而为国家利益服务。科学中的数学语义侧重于学生将核心学科科学思想与交叉数学概念（如模式和比例）融合在一起的能力，同时从事科学实践，如计算思维，做出预测和从证据中推理。目前对本科STEM教育的愿景强调需要将i)关键学科思想和ii)横切概念与iii)真实的科学实践相结合，从而实现所谓的三维学习。这需要开发新的评估方法，能够发现学生何时参与三维学习，并向教师揭示这一点。本项目旨在扩展以前的工作，以确定在课堂上观察科学中的数学意义的机会。该项目计划开发开放式问题，利用三维学习评估来探索本科生在科学中的数学意义。通过提供能够揭示学生思维的有吸引力和真实的评估，这有助于改善本科阶段的STEM教育。该项目的研究结果应该有助于为本科STEM课程的教学实践提供信息，并帮助学生培养计算思维技能。该项目将有两个目标。目标1是应用以证据为中心的设计过程来开发开放式评估项目，这些评估项目可以引出科学（MaSS）中的数学意义，并与三维学习（3DL）评估框架保持一致。以证据为中心的评估设计方法将提供在整个过程中收集效度证据的机会，并允许跨学科开发类似的项目。评估任务和编码规则将基于3DL和MaSS的框架，并将迭代修改以引出和分类学生MaSS。该项目将与本科生进行访谈，以在完成评估项目时检查他们的MaSS，并与大学教师进行访谈，以确保与大学课程中常见的学科主题和现象保持一致。目标2是管理跨本科科学学科的构建反应项目，以探索本科生如何参与生物，化学和物理的质量。该计划将在不同的本科院校实施第一阶段的评估项目，以收集学生的反馈。这些回答将用于定量地建立项目的有效性、可靠性和公平性的证据。此外，这些回答将用于探讨本科生如何在不同的科学学科中参与MaSS。该项目满足了开发丰富的、形成性的、揭示学生思维的本科3DL评估项目的需求，这对于旨在培养质量的教学是必不可少的。该项目还将通过遵循3DL评估框架，促进对本科生如何整合对关键STEM概念和跨学科数学的思考的理解。NSF IUSE: EDU项目支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过其参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。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。