Journal article
Assessment of practical science in high stakes examinations: a qualitative analysis of high performing English-speaking countries
- Abstract:
- High stakes examinations can have profound implications for how science is taught and learned. Limitations of school science such as the ‘cookbook problem’ can potentially be addressed if high stakes assessments target learning outcomes that are innovative. For example, less mindless procedural engagement and more thoughtful consideration of practical science can potentially improve science learning. In this paper, we investigate how practical work is represented in the assessment frameworks of several countries that demonstrate above average performance in the latest PISA science assessments. The main motivation is the need to understand if there are aspects of high stakes summative assessments in these countries that can provide insight into how best to structure national examinations. Assessment documents from a set of selected countries have been analysed qualitatively guided by questions such as ‘what is the construct of practical science’ and ‘what is the format of assessment?’ The examined jurisdictions used different approaches from traditional external pen-and-paper tests to internal teacher assessments that included different formats (e.g. laboratory report). Innovative approaches to the assessment of practical skills (e.g. PISA computer-based tasks) do not seem to be represented in these high-stakes assessments. Implications for innovative assessments for high-stakes purposes are discussed.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Supplementary materials, Version of record, 6.7MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1080/09500693.2020.1769876
Authors
- Publisher:
- Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
- Journal:
- International Journal of Science Education More from this journal
- Volume:
- 42
- Issue:
- 9
- Pages:
- 1544-1567
- Publication date:
- 2020-08-06
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-05-12
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1464-5289
- ISSN:
-
0950-0693
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1104487
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1104487
- Deposit date:
-
2020-05-13
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Erduran et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2020
- Rights statement:
- © 2020 The Authors. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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