This article reports on the development and piloting of a German version of a concept test to assess students' conceptual knowledge of density. The concept test was administered in paper-pencil format to 222 German secondary school students as a post-test after instruction in all relevant concepts of density. We provide a psychometric…

We investigated the effect of retrieval practice (i.e., the use of testing to enhance learning) by middle school students on science learning in an authentic educational setting. For initial study, all students (n = 39) read a science text and made study notes about the text, a regular study activity in their course. For restudy (2 days later),…

Laboratory education is a defining feature of chemistry degree courses, with one of the fundamental aims being acquiring competency in a range of chemistry-specific practical skills, yet there are still limited reports of direct assessment of these skills. Here, we present the development, implementation, and evaluation of a station-based…

Testing as an assessment technique has been widely used at all levels of education--from primary to higher school. The main purpose of the paper is to evaluate the effect of context-based testing in teaching and learning of analytical chemistry in a Russian university. The paper formulates the objectives of context-based testing, discusses its…

The American Chemical Society-Examinations Institute (ACS-EI) released the first ACS Foundations of Inorganic Chemistry Examination in 2016 to better address the two generalized types of inorganic chemistry courses (i.e., at the foundation or second/third-year level and the indepth or third/fourth-year level). The ACS Inorganic Chemistry Exam that…

We investigated the use and validity of standardized achievement tests for summative evaluation of 78 educational intervention projects funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) math and science education program. Investigators from 46 projects evaluated curricular interventions with standardized achievement tests as outcome measures.…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is an integral measure of academic progress over time. It is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what our nation's students know and can do in various subjects such as civics, mathematics, reading, science, technology and engineering literacy, U.S. history, and…

Background: Economists are making increasing use of measures of student achievement obtained through large-scale survey assessments such as NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA. The construction of these measures, employing plausible value (PV) methodology, is quite different from that of the more familiar test scores associated with assessments such as the SAT…

Assessment has garnered increased interest in recent years. It is seen as critical to enhancing student learning and understanding. Formative assessment tools such as concept inventories could be valuable in moving toward such goals. Concept inventories, a recent addition to biology education, hold much promise for helping faculty to understand…

This article report on the development and use of an analytical framework intended to map the language demands encountered by English learners as they engage in science performance assessments. Grounded in functional and interactional views of language and language use, the authors--two science education researchers and a language…

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…

Outlines each of the papers presented in this special section, describes difficulties the arguments posed, and raises questions that might be put to the author of each of these discussions of new assessment methods in mathematics. Implications for the technology for the development of performance assessments are discussed. (SLD)

The construct validity of the New Standards middle school Science Reference Examination was studied focusing on evidence related to the internal and external structure of the assessment, the reliability of the assessment scores, and the generalizability of the assessment results. Data for 450 students were taken from the field test in spring 1998.…

Five forms of a basic science examination administered over three years in a national board testing program were analyzed to determine the stability of judged cut scores. Results indicate that cut scores derived from the modified Nedelsky procedure were within equating error of the Rasch equated cut scores over the five administrations. (SLD)

The current status of "homemade" achievement tests reported in "Journal of Research in Science Teaching" and "Science Education" (January 1975 to January 1980) is examined using Anderson's (EJ 062 750) eight categories of information that a high quality research report should include. Findings from 142 references…