A Guide to Science Classroom

A GUIDE TO SCIENCE CLASSROOM

ASSESSMENT METHODS

By

Virginia Malone

November, 1989

Table of Contents

IIntroduction

Rationale for multiple forms of assessment...... 3

Linking assessment and goals...... 3

Choosing assessment methods...... 4

Organization of this guide...... 5

IICollections of Responses...... 6

Portfolios...... 7-16

Journals and log books...... 17-19

III Constructed Responses...... 20

Reflections on learning...... 21-26

Post-learning responses...... 27

Structured interviews...... 28-31

Short open-ended items...... 32

Explaining concepts...... 34-36

Decision-making...... 37-38

Designing solutions...... 39-40

Scientific inquires...... 41-42

Fill-in-the-blank...... 43-46

Justified selected response...... 47-50

Short hands-on tasks...... 50-54

Investigations...... 55-56

Content investigations...... 57-58

Issue studies...... 59-62

Design problem studies...... 63-64

Scientific inquiries...... 65-68

IV Selected Responses...... 69

Multiple choice, True/False, and Matching...... 70-72

Surveys...... 73-77

VDirect Observations...... 78

Checklists...... 79-81

VIScoringMethods...... 82-90

VIAnnotated Resource List...... 91-92

INTRODUCTION

Rationale for Multiple Forms of Assessment

Multiple forms of assessment provide teachers with a clear perception of their student’s conceptual understanding, skills, attitudes and behaviors. Each method presented in this guide can be used prior to teaching, as part of teaching, or after teaching has occurred. These methods can yield information on everything from student achievement to program effectiveness. But each method has its strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, several methods should be used to give the clearest picture possible of students.

Any method of assessment, formal or informal, can stimulate students with thought-provoking tasks. Frequently, formal methods become learning experiences that encourage teachers to create their own activities and students to become actively involved in their own education. But formal methods are also blamed for teachers and students alike focusing on “will this be on the test” more than “is this important to learn. The methods themselves cannot be blamed for this mind-set. Greater efforts must be made to ensure high-quality assessment instruments and high-quality training for all stakeholders in the education of students.

While this guide provides many methods of assessment, it certainly does not cover all of them. There are some suggested scoring methods, but there are numerous others as well. It is only through investigation of student needs, teacher needs, curriculum demands, and final uses of the data that assessment answers will begin to appear.

Linking Assessment Methods and Goals

The links between goals, assessment instruments, scoring, and reporting are vital to a solid assessment system. The first step in assessment is to determine the long-term goals of the program. The examples in this guide are linked to long-term goals and the specific objectives that support them. Each example should be viewed with a clear understanding of these goals. The chosen long-term goals are those that support the roles students should be able to fill in the adult world. These roles are lifelong learners, workers able to interact positively with others and design solutions to problems, active citizens able to make decisions supported by an understanding of factual information on all sides of issues, and supportive parents and community members able to help new generations to learn. In each of these roles, the student will be expected to produce work that is clear, accurate, thorough but concise, and soundly reasoned. These expectations form the basis of the rubric used to score the collections of responses and the constructed responses.

The final data collected during assessment must be evaluated in terms of long term goals. Does the data show that students are learning what they are supposed to be learning? How much progress have they made toward the goals? How far do they have to go? The answers to these questions are very important to parents and should be included in any report to parents.

Choosing Assessment Methods

When choosing an assessment method, many questions need to be answered. The following list is not exhaustive, but can act as a starting point for evaluation of assessment systems.

Questions

• What goals or objectives are to be assessed and how much emphasis is to be placed on each?

• What is the purpose of the assessment?

• Is the purpose of the assessment clear to students, teachers, and other stakeholders?

• Are the assessment tasks engaging?

• Do the assessment tasks actually measure the goals or objectives they are supposed to be measuring?

• Is the information collected worth the effort in terms of teacher time, student time, and monetary costs?

• Will the results help students?

• Can the results be reported to all stakeholders in an easily interpreted fashion?

• Can reliable scoring be completed in a timely fashion?

• Can the assessment instrument be administered to the number of students in the program in the time allotted?

Organization of This Guide

Assessment methods in this guide are organized according to the types of responses that are to be assessed.

• Collections of Responses - This assessment method has students collect their works in a variety of ways. Two of the chief assessments in this section are portfolios of best works and portfolios of works over time. The works in both types of portfolios are products of constructed response and selected response activities. Another collection of responses is found in journals and log books.

• Constructed Response - Constructed or free response methods require students to develop their own responses. The responses may range from fill-in-the-blank to paraphrasing of content to reflections on the nature of learning.

• Selected Response - Selected response methods require students to choose from responses furnished by the assessment writer. These methods generally include true/false, multiple choice, matching, and keyed surveys.

• Observable Responses - The responses expected in these assessments are observable behaviors or skills. As the name suggests, these assessment methods depend on direct observations of students at work.

This guide includes overviews of those assessment methods that seem most useful in classroom situations. Examples are given to illustrate most of the methods discussed in this guide and some activities are delineated to help teachers construct their own assessments. All assessment methods can and should be used in both formal and informal situations. Most may be administered by computer, orally, or in written format. In addition to the methods presented in this guide, creative teachers will find endless ways to assess student performance.

Following the sections on assessment methods are a brief section on scoring and a section of annotated resources.

Collections of Responses

A collection of responses provides an excellent way to view individual levels of achievement or individual progress. This guide covers the following collections: Portfolios of best works, portfolios of works over time, and journals and logbooks.

Portfolios

A portfolio of best works provides a view of a students highest levels of achievement. This type of collection shows attainment of specific objectives or long-term goals. A portfolio of works over time permits assessment of progress. This type of collection enables students to see the progress they have made.

Portfolios have two advantages over conventional methods of assessment. First, they allow teachers to devise stimulating, complex activities that go beyond covering the book. The multifaceted activities most appropriate for a portfolio can correspond to the real world of work in ways that skill-building worksheets and end-of-chapter questions cannot.

The second advantage of portfolios is that they can encourage the student to reflect on the work. This leads to self-evaluation and the selfevaluation implicit in portfolios can contribute to a student’s understanding of the importance of accurate self-assessment.

Both types of portfolios can be scored on the level of the work within the collection. In many cases the work is scored before it is added to a portfolio and then an overall score on the work is given. A portfolio can receive another score that is entirely independent of the quality of work in the portfolio. This score depends on the students self-evaluation and rationale for adding works to the portfolio.

Journals and Logbooks

Logbooks or journals are usually permanently bound records of original observations, quantitative data, and personal thoughts which are kept in chronological order. Unlike the exemplary portfolio, the logbook and journal include all work, including mistakes, sidetracks, and chemical spills. They generally include thoughts on a problem, possible solutions, pitfalls, and data.

Portfolios

Areas assessed - Conceptual understanding, technical skills, thinking skills, attitudes, interests, habits of mind, creativity, self-reflection
Number of students assessed at one time - Large group
Teacher preparation time -Two to three hours to design portfolios, with periodic review
Typical class time - One 45-minute class period each time the portfolio is reorganized. One to two class periods for completing cover sheets or resumes
Possible scoring methods - Checklist, analytic holistic, focused holistic, self-evaluation
Possible problems - Purpose and methods may be confusing to students; students may mistake volume for quality; overly strict guidelines may be adopted for portfolio; portfolios may be mistakenly equated; long scoring time; worthwhile activities may be time-consuming to develop; portfolio may be cumbersome for assessing specific objectives; standardized administration is difficult
Possible values - Gives view of student growth; invites self-evaluation; encourages student and teacher creativity; permits utilization of any type of student-produced product; can show progress toward long-range goals

Prior to asking a student to develop a portfolio, a purpose for the portfolio should be discussed. For example, in this guide the purpose of the portfolio is to establish a better understanding of the adult roles the student will play, how school work is helping to prepare the student for these roles, and to illustrate the student’s level of achievement toward these roles. These roles are discussed in the introduction on page 3 of this guide. In adapting these materials, you will need to be keenly aware of your educational goals for your students and forge your assessments accordingly.

Best Works

Like the portfolio of a painter or writer, this type of student portfolio should contain only the student’s best works. The portfolio might center on a single style of work or it might encompass a wide variety of pieces, such as reflective writings, scientific investigations, explanations of concepts, pictures, multimedia productions, or any evidence of student achievement. But, like any professional portfolio, a student portfolio should have a purpose and the purpose should be clear and relevant to the student. The student can be allowed to choose what to include in the portfolio, either totally or in part, as long as the works included meet the purpose.

Additions and other changes to portfolios can be made at random, at set intervals during the year, or even over the course of several years. The amount of work included usually has to be limited in some way to facilitate review, scoring, student reflection, and self-evaluation.

Reviews of student work can supply information about student attitudes, skills, behaviors, and conceptual understanding. Questions that teachers might ask include the following:

Does the student understand where improvements can be made?

Is the student overrating or underrating the quality of the work?

Do the chosen samples reflect the purpose of the portfolio?

Works Over Time

Portfolios of works over time are excellent for students who have gotten behind and feel that they are making no progress. These portfolios can also be eye-openers for students who have achieved high levels compared to their peers, but who have actually increased the quality of their work very little. Students who have entered school with little fluency in English can also benefit from these forms of assessment as they begin to see the tremendous gains they have made during the assessment period. And last, but far from least, are average students who can see the strides they have made and can feel a real sense of accomplishment, a feeling that average grades rarely impart.

In the first segment of the portfolio overtime, a student simply creates a best works portfolio. In the following segment, the first portfolio is set aside to be compared to the final portfolio. This method prevents a bulging portfolio with mixtures of old and new work. Once teachers become accustomed to developing assessment tasks, they may try to develop similar types of activities for both the beginning and final portfolio. Working with teachers in previous grades can provide a continuity of activity types if school-wide goals are appropriate for all grades and portfolios are kept from year to year. While the activities cannot be equated, one might assume that if students have chosen the best of their work over time from a wide selection of similar activities, they are capable of producing the level of work shown in the portfolio.

The following questions might bereviewed for portfolios containing works over time.

Does the student understand how much improvement has been made during the course of the assessment period?

Is the student overrating or underrating the amount of improvement that has been made?

Are increases in content understanding, skills, and behaviors apparent?

Are the increases above or below the expected increases?

Has the student shown a decrease in achievement? If so, why?

Examples of Summaries and Cover Sheets

Example of a cover sheet for a single piece in a portfolio:

COVER SHEET
Name ______Today’s Date ______
Activity Title______
Date Activity Started _____ Date Activity Finished_____
Group Activity or Individual Activity ______
Activity Abstract:
The abstract should include the problem, a brief review of the methods used, and the conclusions reached or the type of product produced. This is especially important if the final product is in a format that cannot be retained.
I included this work in my portfolio because –
Novice students should be given some questions to help them evaluate their work. The focus questions on the next page are providedas examples. The number of questions should decrease as students develop self-evaluation skills.
I certify that this report is a correct and accurate reflection of this student’s work with the following notable exceptions:
If the portfolio annotations are to be retained by the school, it might be necessary to verify the student’s reflections. Students may want to inflate their self-evaluation. The teacher’s annotations can help eliminate some of the distortions or ambiguities of student’s views.

Name ______Title______Date ______

This sheet could be embossed with a school seal to certify authenticity.

Example of a summary sheet for a portfolio of best works:

PORTFOLIO SUMMARY
______
(Name) (Subject) (Date)
MY GOALS / EVIDENCE IN MY PORTFOLIO
To write better
To get along with EVERYONE on my team even if I don’t like them very much.
COURSE GOALS / EVIDENCE IN MY PORTFOLIO
To develop the ability to learn on my own
To develop the ability to design solutions to problems
To develop the ability to interact positively with others
To develop the ability to make and support decisions
To develop the ability to support the learning of others

Example of a summary sheet for a portfolio maintained over time.

PORTFOLIO SUMMARY
OVER TIME
______
(Name) (Subject) (Date)
Beginning Portfolio / Final Portfolio
How thorough was my work? / How thorough is my work now?
How accurate were my observations, calculations, and facts? / How accurate are my observations, calculations, and facts now?
How reasonable were my explanations? / How reasonable are my explanations now?
How clear was my work? / How clear is my work now?
Areas that needed improvement / Areas now needing improvement

Examples of focus questions for initiating self-evaluation

Have your students ask themselves questions like these as they add pieces to their portfolios.

What are your goals?

Have students consider both short term and long term goals.

How far have you come toward those goals?

Encourage students to see the strides they have made towards their own goals as well as toward school goals.

How far do you have to go to meet your goals?

Have students consider next steps they need to take to reach their goals. These steps may include remediation in areas of weakness.

What did you learn from your work on this piece that you did not know before?

Have students identify concepts that they learned as they worked on the piece.

What can you do now that you could not do before completing this piece? What can you do better now than you could do before?

Have students identify new or improved skills.

What does this piece show about the progress you have made toward your personal goals, as well as the goals and objectives of this course? What does this piece show that other pieces in your portfolio do not show?

Have the student relate their work on this piece to their personal goals or the goals of the course or grade level. Encourage students to choose a single best work rather than many pieces showing the same type of achievements.

If you did this piece over, how would you change it? Explain how the changes would make the piece better.

Encourage students to find areas of needed improvement.

(If this was a group project) What was your contribution to this project?

Reviewing the reflections of other members of the group could help support or refute this student’s self-evaluation.

How well did you work with other members of the group? What could you do to help the group improve teamwork skills?

You may want to review the SCANS Report, What Work Requires of Schools with your students to help them understand the need to work as a member of a team. One of the reasons most often cited for employee problems is a lack of ability to work with others.

What were some major contributions to this activity made by others?