Australian educators teaching in the early years of formal schooling find themselves grappling with the dilemmas of preparing learners to sit performance-based assessments in later years and their sense of pedagogic responsibility towards designing competency-based assessment. Studies have explored this tension in the primary and middle years…

As part of curriculum reforms, models and modelling (MoMo) are playing an increasingly prominent role in science education. Through a questionnaire study, this paper investigates lower secondary school teachers' (n = 246) perceived practices of, rationales behind, and possibilities for working with MoMo in the context of the revised science…

Competency-based learning (CBL) is a grading strategy that emphasizes the mastery of content. At Middle Technical College (MTC), success rates in the college algebra class have decreased. This study will answer two questions: how will a CBL approach to learning affect student perceptions of their success and what are student perceptions of after…

Health care professionals, be they researchers, clinicians or educators, routinely face the need to find and apply best evidence in the context of complex situations. In order to navigate an increasingly large body of evidence advanced information literacy skills are required. More than simply a set of skills, information literacy is an approach…

New competence-oriented learning goals can only be sustainably implemented if they are aligned with teaching and assessment goals. Within the fields of science, technology and mathematics education, one approach of competence-oriented teaching is based on the concept of inquiry-based education. Scientific inquiry in science, problem solving in…

This research was aimed at analyzing (1) the effectiveness of the three levels of inquiry (structured, guided and free inquiry) to improve the students' scientific reasoning skills compared to the conventional method; (2) the implementation of the three levels of inquiry. This study can be categorized as quasi-experimental with pre-test posttest…

This paper describes the long-term re-development of an introductory graduate research methods course. The initial design is presented, followed by the two re-design phases. Phase 2 introduced additional inquiry-based strategies such as concept mapping and multiple levels of peer collaboration. Phase 3 incorporated competency-based techniques as…

The ASSIST-ME project has a dual aim: (1) to provide a research base on the effective uptake of formative and summative assessment for inquiry-based, competence-oriented Science, Technology and Mathematics (STM) education and (2) to use this research base to give policy-makers and other stakeholders guidelines for ensuring that assessment enhances…