Describes the construction of assessments on inclines and friction from blueprints--or shells--which address the tasks of planning, hands-on, analysis, and application. Examines the reliability and validity of the assessments as well as the comparability of the assessments generated with the shell. Contains 48 references. (Author/WRM)

Research on developing technology for large-scale performance assessments in science is reported briefly, and a conceptual framework is presented for defining, generating, and evaluating science performance assessments. Types of tasks are discussed, and the technical qualities of performance assessments are discussed in the context of…

Some aspects of the relationships among the symbolic representations (Rs) of problems given to students to solve, the Rs that students use to solve problems, and the accuracy of the solutions were studied. Focus was on determining: the mental Rs that students used while solving problems, the kinds of translation that takes place, the accuracy of…

By creating science achievement tests that satisfy cognitive fidelity and process relevance criteria, educators will produce achievement indicators that serve a reporting function and still benefit the educational system. The true test of students' understanding is hands-on assessment in a laboratory situation. Includes eight references. (MLH)

Studied content domain, format, and level of inquiry as factors contributing to the large variation in student performance across open-ended measures. Results for more than 1,200 eighth graders do not support the hypothesis that tasks similar in content, format, and level of inquiry would correlate higher with each other than with measures…

Conceptual, practical, and logistical issues in the development of science performance assessments (SPAs) are discussed. The conceptual framework identifies task, response format, and scoring system as components, and conceives of SPAs as tasks that attempt to recreate conditions in which scientists work. Developing SPAs is a sophisticated effort…

In a project on the development of performance assessments in science, researchers have developed four types of assessment: comparative, component identification, classification, and observation. They have noted that assessments belonging to the same type of task can be scored for the same performance properties. This paper reports on the…

A recent study compared hands-on scientific inquiry assessment to assessments involving lab notebooks, computer simulations, short-answer paper-and-pencil problems, and multiple-choice questions. Creating high quality performance assessments is a costly, time-consuming process requiring considerable scientific and technological know-how. Improved…

Two studies involving 368 elementary and high school students and 29 readers were conducted to investigate reader consistency, score reliability, and reader time requirements of three hands-on science performance tasks. Holistic scores were as reliable as analytic scores, and there was a high correlation between them after they were disattenuated…

This study investigated three factors that may contribute to the large variation in student performance across open-ended measures. These factors are content domain, format (whether the task required only pencil and paper or involved a hands-on manipulation of equipment), and level of inquiry (whether the task guided the student toward the…

This study investigated the relationships among the symbolic representation of problems given to students to solve, the mental representations they use to solve the problems, and the accuracy of their solutions. Twenty eleventh-grade science students were asked to think aloud as they solved problems on the ideal gas laws. The problems were…

Guidelines for developing performance assessments in science education allied with current research and reform are presented. The guidelines are applied to 3 hands-on science investigations performed by over 300 fifth and sixth graders and scored by science educators. Although difficult to develop, such assessments can be scored reliably. (SLD)

One potential approach to the authentic assessment of what students know and can do in science is concept mapping. A concept map is a graph consisting of nodes representing concepts and labeled lines denoting the relation between a pair of nodes (concepts). The external concept map constructed by the student is interpreted as representing…

This review brings diverse research to bear on the contention that current achievement tests may underestimate students' subject-matter knowledge and problem-solving ability because of the mismatch between the symbolic form that typical achievement tests use and the specificity of students' symbolic encoding that arises from instruction and…

Investigates the validity and reliability of performance assessments using data from over 300 fifth and sixth graders. Results demonstrate the gap between the reality of measurement through performance assessments and the political rhetoric that would institute these assessments in a national examination system in the immediate future. (SLD)