Collaborative Research: A Model for Data-driven Reform in Chemistry Education

化学(12)这个项目利用了几位合作者的成果，他们在开发和验证评估化学学习和认知的工具方面进行了研究。该项目寻求通过开发、实施和研究学生学习的多种工具措施来倍增这些工具的效力和影响。该项目利用合作者的集体专业知识来建立一套强大的交叉验证评估工具，并确定这些项目如何最好地向化学教师提供有关其教学有效性的信息。通过提高教育工作者根据可靠的数据做出教学选择的能力，从经过验证的测量学习的工具中，本科化学教学的大规模变化可以改变STEM学科学生的教育体验。这个项目的智力价值体现在两个方面。首先，对新的化学评估工具的评估研究和验证不仅从教学的角度提供了重要的数据，而且在建立化学认知发展的基本过程的知识库方面也提供了重要的数据。为了了解知识获取，必须设计、开发和实施更好的测量技术。其次，使用评估工具来确定教学方法的有效性提供了一个充满发现机会的领域。在使用新教学方法的情况下，在学习测量方面的创新能够推动基于数据而不是轶事的决定，并加强对教学有效的学术研究。这个项目中使用的多仪器方法处于化学教育测量的前沿，因此打开了与教学方法相关的新学术的可能性。这项工作的更广泛的影响很大程度上与其改进化学评估实践的潜力有关。美国化学学会的考试研究所和国家科学数字图书馆的化学数字图书馆都参与了这一项目，并拥有庞大的用户社区，在全国范围内，因此基于该项目结果的评估改进有望转化为在化学领域的广泛使用。由于化学是一个认知领域，有多种表征用于理解许多现象，该领域评估工具的改进能够为其他STEM领域的类似工具提供信息，从而扩大该项目的潜在影响，使其超越化学。这个项目是由数据驱动的，因此涉及到收集数据，这些数据可能有助于开发和改进严格的认知模型。

Chemistry (12)This project leverages results from several collaborators who have conducted research in the development and validation of instruments for assessing learning and cognition in chemistry. The project seeks to multiply both the efficacy and impact of these instruments by developing, implementing, and studying multiple instrument measures of student learning. The project uses the collective expertise of the collaborators to build a robust suite of cross-validated assessment instruments and to determine how these items can best provide information to chemistry instructors on the effectiveness of their teaching. By enhancing the ability for educators to make teaching choices based on sound data, from validated instruments for measuring learning, large scale change in the teaching of undergraduate chemistry can transform the educational experience of students in STEM disciplines. The intellectual merit of this project lies along two vectors. First, assessment research and validation of new assessment instruments in chemistry provides important data not only from the perspective of teaching, but also in terms of building the knowledge base of the fundamental processes of cognitive growth in chemistry. In order to learn about knowledge acquisition, better measurement technology must be devised, developed and implemented. Second, using assessment instruments to ascertain the effectiveness of teaching methods provides an area rich in opportunities for discovery. Innovation in the measurement of learning in situations where new teaching methods are used is capable of driving decisions based on data rather than anecdotes and enhances the scholarship of what works in teaching. The multiple-instrument methods used in this project are at the cutting edge of educational measurement in chemistry and therefore open the possibility of novel scholarship related to teaching methodology The broader impacts of this work are tied largely to its potential for improving assessment practice within chemistry. Both the Exams Institute of the American Chemical Society and the ChemEd DL of the National Science Digital Library are involved in this project and have large communities of users, national in scope, so improvements made in assessment based on the findings of this project are expected to translate to widespread usage within chemistry. Because chemistry is a cognitive domain with multiple representations used to understand many phenomena, the improvements of assessment instruments in this field are capable of informing similar instruments in other STEM fields, thus broadening the potential impact of this project beyond chemistry. This project is data-driven, and therefore involves the collection of data that can be useful in developing and improving rigorous models of cognition.