Assessment

Though many national and international science organizations stress the importance of integrating scientific inquiry into classroom instruction, this is often difficult for teachers. Moreover, assessing and scaffolding inquiry skills for students can be even more of a challenge. This paper investigated the student performances in an inquiry-based, situated virtual environment assessment and their descriptions of the experience in a strategically scaffolded conversation that followed it. In the strategic scaffold, or “wraparound,” teachers elicited student’s inquiry pathways and problem solving abilities through a series of scripted and improvised questions. These wraparounds were transcribed and coded to determine students’ inquiry vocabulary usage. Students most frequently discussed using tools to gather data within the world. When coded results from wraparounds were compared with scores, paradoxically the only significant relationship was a negative one between the number of times students talked about using tools and the overall class performance on multiple-choice questions. Student vocabulary usage and the cause of the negative correlation are explored within this paper.

Current science assessments typically present a series of isolated fact-based questions, poorly representing the complexity of how real-world science is constructed. The National Research Council asserts that this needs to change to reflect a more authentic model of science practice. We strongly concur and suggest that good science assessments need to consist of several key factors: integration of science content with scientific inquiry, contextualization of questions, efficiency of grading and statistical validity and reliability.