Teachers need ways to efficiently assess students' cognitive understanding. One promising approach involves easily adapted and administered item types that yield quantitative scores that can be interpreted in terms of whether or not students likely possess key understandings. This study illustrates an approach to analyzing response process…

This article illustrates and differentiates the unique role cognitive interviews and think-aloud interviews play in developing and validating assessments. Specifically, we describe the use of (a) cognitive interviews to gather empirical evidence to support claims about the intended construct being measured and (b) think-aloud interviews to gather…

We have developed assessment tasks aligned to NGSS that require students to use practices along with disciplinary core ideas to make sense of energy-related phenomena. In this paper, we present an analysis of field test data and feedback from expert reviewers on the validity and reliability of a set of elementary school tasks. These tasks focused…

Making inferences and reasoning with new scientific information is critical for successful performance in biology coursework. Thus, identifying students who are weak in these skills could allow the early provision of additional support and course placement recommendations to help students develop their reasoning abilities, leading to better…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a public university's design and implementation of an assessment approach that measures the change in undergraduate students' environmental stewardship reasoning and knowledge abilities over time. Design/methodology/approach: In support of a university's strategic emphasis on environmental…

Assessment is an important aspect of medical education because it tests students' competence and motivates them to study. Various assessment methods, with and without images, are used in the study of anatomy. In this study, we investigated the use of extended matching questions (EMQs). To gain insight into the influence of images on the…

The focus of assessment in statistics has gradually shifted from traditional assessment towards alternative assessment where more attention has been paid to the core statistical concepts such as center, variability, and distribution. In spite of this, there are comparatively few assessments that combine the significant three types of statistical…

A Chemistry Concept Reasoning Test was created and validated providing an easy-to-use tool for measuring conceptual understanding and critical scientific thinking of general chemistry models and theories. The test is designed to measure concept understanding comparable to that found in free-response questions requiring explanations over…

The Evidence-Based Reasoning Assessment System (EBRAS) brings together advances in modeling scientific reasoning and assessment design to guide the development of written assessment items that target, disentangle, and elicit evidence of the multiple proficiencies underlying scientific argumentation. In this study, the EBRAS was used to assess the…

Reviews selected research, widely-used commercial tests, and recent literature on critical thinking. States that evaluation of critical thinking processes should encompass more than simple tests. Concludes with six guidelines for evaluating critical thinking. (JDH)

After giving examples of incorrect questioning techniques and illogical thinking, Bhatt calls for more rigorous training in logical analysis for those involved in educational testing and measurement. (SP)

The authors developed, tested, and validated a set of student self-ratings, teacher ratings, and performance assessment instruments designed to measure generalizable reasoning skills of students enrolled in secondary vocational programs. They were found to be sufficiently reliable and valid indicators of functional learning strengths and…

Reports the efforts of the California Assessment Program (CAP) to interject critical thinking items into its new statewide social studies tests. Provides definitions of the critical thinking skills tested by the 8th grade social studies CAP test, and lists 100 critical thinking skills vocabulary words. (JDH)

This document contains the second volume of the proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Conference presentations are centered around the theme "Mathematics at the Centre." This volume features 60 research reports by presenters with last names beginning between Abr…