The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study was to identify factors that influenced prospective and experienced secondary level science teachers' reasoning as they evaluated or selected tasks to formatively assess their students' understanding of scientific concepts. The analysis of the coded written responses revealed two categories of…

Lays out an agenda for developing assessment tools and researching their effectiveness. Series of design tasks is proposed, with related research questions. Needed theoretical research includes studies of the effects of alternative assessment on policy and practice as well as the development of new psychometric techniques. Influences of new…

Reviews research on children's ideas about floating and sinking. Describes the Model-Assisted Reasoning in Science (MARS) project curriculum and student responses to a question about helium balloons. Contains 61 references. (DDR)

Argues that science educators often face the problem of abnormal distributions when conducting large-scale assessments or evaluating national curriculum projects that require complex sampling plans. Examines the precision of science test scores. (DDR)

Reports on a study that uses psychometric modeling to rank the appeal of a variety of children's astronomical ideas on a single uniform scale. Findings support the view that alternative conceptions may be markers of progress toward understanding. Contains 82 references. (DDR)

Compares the achievement in science for ninth grade students in China and the United States. Reveals a small difference between the two groups and presents a rationale for the comparison. Contains 31 references. (DDR)

Describes the development of a systematic instrument for assessing the impact of an environmental science course on students' behavior outside school. Students in an inquiry-oriented experimental curriculum significantly increased their leisure time activities in environmental science over students in traditional classrooms. (DS)

A large number of American elementary school students are now studying science using the hands-on inquiry curricula developed in the 1990s: Insights; Full Option Science System (FOSS); and Science and Technology for Children (STC). A goal of these programs, echoed in the "National Science Education Standards," is that children should…

Examines congruence between science content structure of instructional materials and students' structural representations before and after science instruction. Eighth-grade science students (N=30) were given concept-structuring tasks before and after studying instructional materials to assess changes in student structural representations.…

In this investigation we employed a case study approach with qualitative and quantitative data sources to examine and discover the characteristics of the processes used by a midwestern U.S. school system to adopt and implement a new K-6 science curriculum. Analysis of data yielded several results. Elementary teachers received what they requested,…