A Historical Investigation into Item Formats of ACS Exams and Their Relationships to Science Practices

The release of the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards has important implications for classroom teaching and assessment. Of particular interest is the implementation of science practices in the chemistry classroom, and the definitions established by the NRC makes these objectives much more tangible. However, this still may leave some wondering about how to begin making these changes. Mid-twentieth century chemical educators and pioneers of the first ACS exams advocated for testing science thinking and skills as early as the 1930s, and this necessitates a discussion about how early ACS exams measured these attributes. More recent debates have seen arguments that multiple-choice questions cannot measure high levels of cognitive ability in chemistry, which leaves questions about how ACS exams or instructors who write tests for large scale classrooms might try to measure science practices. The possibility that an analysis of the item formats used on ACS exams from 1934 to 1970 would help inform the creation of improved item types in testing today is investigated and presented here.Reprinted (adapted) with permission from J. Chem. Educ., 2015, 92 (11), pp 1798–1806. Copyright 2015 American Chemical Society.</p

What Students Say Versus What They Do Regarding Scientific Inquiry

Science Education, Vol. 98, No. 1, pp. 1–35We teach a course for elementary education undergraduates that gives students an opportunity to conduct open-ended scientific inquiry and pursue their own scientific questions in much the sameway that practicing research scientists do. In this study,we compared what our students say declaratively about the nature of science (NOS) in surveys and interviews with what they do procedurally when engaged in authentic scientific practice. Initially, we were surprised when our students showed very little change on two different validated NOS questionnaires, adhering to seemingly memorized definitions of key NOS vocabulary such as “science” and “experiment.” In contrast, on procedural measures of NOS understanding, students developed a decidedly sophisticated approach to answering scientific questions. Our data suggest that students’ declarative understandings about the NOS are not a reliable measure of students’ ability to engage productively in scientific practices and vice versa. We discuss why this might be and consider the implications of this disconnect on identifying the best approach to NOS instruction and on future science education research

Creating a world-class education system in Ohio

Title from PDF cover (viewed on Mar. 30, 2007).; "... In October, 2006, the Ohio State Board of Education asked Achieve, Inc. ... to evaluate and benchmark Ohio's K-12 policies and practices against best-in-class international standards. ... Achieve then asked a team from McKinsey & Company ... to undertake research on the characteristics of high-performing systems and conduct a comprehensive review of Ohio's current K-12 education system against those international best practices. Achieve collaborated with McKinsey throughout the entire process, and the effort benefited from cooperation from the Ohio Department of Education"--P. 1.; "Created: 2/12/2007 ..."--Document properties screen.; Includes bibliographical references (87-96 p.); Harvested from the web on 3/30/07Intended for Ohio policymakers and all other stakeholders interested in moving Ohio's K-12 system to world class-levels.Intended for Ohio policymakers and all other stakeholders interested in moving Ohio's K-12 system to world class-levels