3.3.1 The development of World Class Tests
Tests were designed to identify highattaining
students in problem solving in
mathematics, science and technology
at ages 9 and 13 years, as part of
the work on the World Class Arena
(www.worldclassarena.org). Computers
make it easy to present new sorts of tasks,
for example tasks where dynamic displays
show changes in several variables over
time, or which present video of a situation
which students must model. A wide variety
of representations can be supported, and
students can be asked to switch between
them. The interactive properties of
computers make them well suited to
the assessment of process skills.
Using computers to give students control
over how data is presented allows them to
work with complex data sets of a sort that
would be very difficult to work with on
paper. Tasks can be set in realistic
contexts, using realistic data to address
problems of considerable complexity, using
resources and methods that are familiar to
professionals working in the relevant field.
Two examples are presented here: Oxygen
and Bean Lab.
Further examples of tasks can be found
in Ridgway and McCusker (2003). Skills
assessed include:
Understanding and representing
problems: traditional educational goals
such as the ability to interpret tables and
graphs, and to translate information coded
in one representation into information
coded in another representation continue
to be vital skills for mathematical and
scientific literacy. Computers allow fast
and reversible transformations of
information from one representation to
another, and students can be asked to
explain the relationships between them.
Assessing process skills in science
and mathematics: the desire to assess
process skills is not new. Traditionally,
students would be presented with tasks in
laboratories, or would be required to keep
logs and portfolios of their laboratory
work. However, the laboratory setting can
introduce elements which reduce the
reliability of the assessment, such as
instruments which fail to function properly,
or materials whose properties are less
than ideal. Students are required to
physically manipulate apparatus chance
differences between students in terms of their previous exposure to particular
equipment can both reduce reliability,
and add an extra cognitive load to the intellectual task being performed. In some
situations, issues |
|
of health and safety arise. Some education systems are unwilling to accept teacher ratings of
students for the purposes of high-stakes
testing, with the result that process skills
in science are not assessed at all.
Computer-based assessment permits the
assessment of these valuable aspects of
learning science, at modest cost. A range
of different process skills can be identified,
which include:
working systematically (for example,
choosing tests systematically,
controlling variables and recording
results systematically)
generating and testing hypotheses
finding rules and relationships
handling complex data
testing solutions
seeking completeness and rigour (in
many real-world situations, exemplified
by diagnosis and remediation in spheres
such as medicine and industrial process
control, it is important to find all of the
faults in a system).
Five sets of live tests have been
administered in the UK and elsewhere,
each of which was preceded by extensive
pre-testing. A notable result was the ease
with which students interacted with
computers. The affective response from
students was very strong they really
enjoy working on these tasks. This might
be related to the sustained challenge the
tasks present, which is similar to the
reported reasons why they like computerbased
games (Kirriemuir and
McFarlane 2004).
Students performed better on some tasks
than one might expect notably tasks that
require them to reason from complex data
sets (eg data with two independent
variables and one dependent variable at
age 9 years). We take this as a very positive
sign that computers can play a leading role
in the development of the skills which
constitute the new educational agenda.
In many aspects, student performance was
poor - work characterised by guessing,
too little use of systematic methods,
poor hypothesis generation, and poor
generalisation. On many tasks, students
were able to show evidence of good
reasoning skills; however, explanations
were often weak. Given the earlier
discussion of the impact of assessment on
the curriculum, it is to be hoped that the
use of e-assessment of process skills will
lead to better student performance on a
range of important activities.
World Class Tests focused on summative
assessment in science, mathematics and
technology, and used a variety of contexts,
including geography and economics, as
well as biology, physics, and engineering.
The ideas are generic, and can be applied
to many curriculum areas. On the basis of
analyses of student performance on WCT,
teaching modules for whole class use have
been developed, targeted on weak process
skills. These teaching modules provide a
good deal of formative assessment, and
require students to engage in reflective
activities such as critiquing student work,
and explaining their own solution strategies.
We discuss new educational goals
that are less amenable to summative
assessment such as the ability to work
in groups, to communicate, to learn to
learn in Section 4.
... next page |
|
|
|
computers can
play a leading
role in the
development of
the skills which
constitute the
new educational
agenda |
