Implementing assessment of inquiry skills in science education
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The document discusses the implementation of inquiry-based science education (IBSE) in Denmark, emphasizing a shift from content knowledge to procedural knowledge in teaching and assessment strategies. It highlights teachers' use of various scaffolding strategies, their perception of curriculum limitations, and the challenges they face in assessing students' inquiry skills and competencies. The study also notes that new curriculum changes in Denmark are beginning to address these assessment concerns.
Implementing assessment of inquiry skills in science education
- 1. Implementing assessment of inquiry skills in science education Perspectives from Denmark Morten Rask Petersen mrask@sdu.dk Laboratory for Coherent Education and Learning, University of Southern Denmark Findings Bibliography Introduction During the last decade or more there has been a more and more severe focus on implementing inquiry learning in science education at primary and secondary level (EU, 2007). The rationale is that with the increasing amount of scientific knowledge it is impossible to teach children all relevant knowledge and it therefore more appropriate to teach them skills that makes it possible for them to increase both scientific knowledge and scientific literacy (Abd-El- Khalick, 2004). Many large EU research and development projects have IBSE as a central turning point. Examples of this are projects like ESTABLISH, Pollen, Fibonacci, PATHWAY, SAILS, PROFILES and ASSIST-ME. In this way, IBSE can be claimed to be a dominant ideology or slogan in the European science education community today. A shift in direction from conceptual knowledge towards procedural knowledge gives considerations on the methods for assessing students learning and competence development. Where a focus on conceptual knowledge mostly calls for a summative approach in assessing, the focus on procedural knowledge mostly calls for formative approach in assessing (Black, 2002). In other words there is a shift in assessment strategies going from assessment of learning towards assessment for learning. What implications do Danish science teachers find in assessing skills during inquiry learning and how do they actually implement such an assessment? The results from this study points out some of the implications in implementing a competence based approach to assessment. In the practical implementation we found that teachers make good use of different scaffolding strategies except for direct instruction. In the follow-up interviews one of the teachers answered when addressing this issue, that he would have used instruction if not this was a case study on inquiry. This indicates that teachers have apperception of inquiry that does not allow teachers to instruct. This is one aspect that could be unfolded in further studies. From the interviews we find several interesting results. The interviewed teachers do not find any implications in the – at that time – existing curriculum. Since this study there a new curriculum has been announced in Denmark. This is a curriculum with a lot more focus on procedural knowledge and competencies. So the statement from the teachers that there is a certain culture among science teachers that point to content knowledge is now challenges from above. We look forward to follow the implementation of procedural knowledge and the following assessment. Acknowledgements Research question Workshop 1: Current situation. The students worked in national and international groups talking about their current situation in science education The current teaching in science • are taking place as a cycle with theory, exercises' and submission of report • are not interdisciplinary • goes through the homework, and does not take the students to a higher level Workshop 2: Interest. Group work, visualizing “interesting science education” at collages Methodology The video analysis shows that teachers make use of different scaffolding strategies in students inquiry work. The use of instructing is though not used as often as other strategies. A preliminary results indicates that questioning is more used when students are in the right side of the analysis model meaning that students taeks more responsibility. Results from the interviews points out that; • Teachers find it important to focus on assessing skills and competencies in science education. • Teachers also find that there is no hindrance in the curriculum for changing the assessment approach in the direction of skills and competencies on behalf of a more content based approach. • Teachers find it hard to assess student’s skills and competencies during their inquiry work. • Teachers find the developed assessment structures useful in their daily work both as tools for planning and conducting assessment and as tools for student’s self-assessment. • Teachers find that the main hindrance for implementing an assessment approach for skills and competencies is a strong content focused identity among science teachers. Discussion Abd‐El‐Khalick, F., Boujaoude, S., Duschl, R., Lederman, N. G., Mamlok‐Naaman, R., Hofstein, A., Niaz, N., Treagust, D. & Tuan, H. L. (2004). Inquiry in science education: International perspectives. Science Education, 88(3), 397-419. Black, P. (2002). Working inside the black box: Assessment for learning in the classroom. Granada Learning. European Commission. (2007). Science education now: A renewed pedagogy for the future of Europe. Brussels: European Commission. Retrieved from http:/ /ec.europa.eu/research/science- society/document__library/pdf_06/report-rocard-on-science-education_en.pdf Hsieh, H. & Shannon, S.E (2005): Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis, Qualitative Health Research, 15, p. 1277-1288 Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009). Interview: introduktion til et håndværk. Hans Reitzel. Van de Pol, J. Volman, M. & Beishuizen, J. (2010). Scaffolding in teacher-student interaction: A decade of research. Educational Psychology Review, 22, 271-296. The methodological approach to this study is by use of mixed methods. To uncover implications from practice we used case studies with inquiry teaching developed within the SAILS project. The teaching sequences were on ultraviolet radiation in lower secondary school and on natural selection in upper secondary school. Each teaching sequence was carried out by two different teachers in three different classes. Student activities were recorded om video and afterwards analyzed within a framework for scaffolding (Van de Pol, Volman & Beishuizen , 2010). Here we interpreted the teachers use of 6 different scaffolding strategies within the framework namely; i) Feeding back, ii) Hints, iii) Instructing, iv) Explaining, v) Modeling, & vi) Questioning. Afterwards the teachers were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). The interviews were transcribed, coded and analyzed through “Directed content analysis” (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Figure 1: Analytical framework for analysing teacher-student interactions. After van de Pol et al., 2010 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 289085