Proficiency in Science: Assessment Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Proficiency in science is being defined through performance expectations that intertwine science practices, cross-cutting concepts, and core content knowledge. These descriptions of what it means to know and do science pose challenges for assessment design and use, whether at the classroom instructional level or the system level for monitoring the progress of science education. There are systematic ways to approach assessment development that can address design challenges, as well as examples of the application of such principles in science assessment. This Review considers challenges and opportunities that exist for design and use of assessments that can support science teaching and learning consistent with a contemporary view of what it means to be proficient in science.

Promoting the Multidimensional Character of Scientific Reasoning

“…In addition to the obvious remedy of reducing subject matter coverage, this perspective also calls for a reevaluation of the assessment items most likely to genuinely measure authentic understanding. Thus, Alberts (26) has called for “a high-profile effort to produce quality assessments that measure student learning” in, for example, the ability to “interpret scientific explanations of the natural world” and “to evaluate scientific evidence.” Similar arguments have been articulated by Pellegrino (8). We believe that were this aspect of course design (the use of assessments capable of measuring scientific reasoning) to be widely implemented in college biology courses, this would dramatically alter student learning strategies required for scholastic success.…”

“…This is a response, in part, to the problem of attrition among undergraduate science majors (2, 3) and concern for American international competitiveness (4, 5). There has been a growing consensus among university-level biology instructors that traditional teaching approaches, including classroom practice (6) and assessments (7, 8), fail with a large number of students and are a major contributing factor to these deficits.…”

Studying Teachers’ Sensemaking to Investigate Teachers’ Responses to Professional Development Focused on New Standards

“…At present, there exist only a few kinds of assessments that include multicomponent tasks that assess core ideas, practices, and crosscutting concepts (Pellegrino, 2013). Some of the tasks developed specifically for the study do include such tasks, and examples are featured in a consensus volume on assessment and the NGSS (Pellegrino, Wilson, Koenig, & Beatty, 2014).…”

Developing tasks to assess phenomenon‐based science learning: Challenges and lessons learned from building proximal transfer tasks

“…Developers of new assessments of integrated science proficiency face additional challenges, beyond contending with the limited number of good examples. The NGSS underspecify many aspects of what is to be assessed, leaving many decisions to developers as to how to structure assessment tasks in ways that elicit students’ integrated understanding of science (Pellegrino, ). Further, guidance from standards underspecifies whether and how to integrate disciplinary core ideas, SEPs, and CCCs within rubrics and score reports (DeBarger, Penuel, Harris, & Kennedy, ).…”