The Student Actions Coding Sheet (SACS): An instrument for illuminating the shifts toward student‐centered science classrooms

Assessing Assessments: A Comparative Study of Three Assessments of Inquiry Skills in Tenth Grade High School Biology Students

“…The vast benefits of incorporating inquiry teaching techniques into the science classroom have been documented by many (e.g., Harlen, 2000;Erdogan, Campbell, & Abd-Hamid, 2011;Quellmalz, Timms, Silberglitt, & Buckley, 2012;Puncochar & Klett, 2013). Zion and Medelovici (2012) emphasize in their model for implementing inquiry-based on an Israeli high school biology inquiry program that had been in place for twelve years-that teaching through inquiry develops scientific literacy, critical thinking, logic, and creative thinking among students.…”

“…Performance-based assessments have been felt by many to be more beneficial in the long term to teaching and learning than are multiple-choice form assessments because they enable the evaluation of HOT skills (Moss, 1992;Harlen, 2000;Erdogan, Campbell, & Abd-Hamid, 2011;Puncochar & Klett, 2013;Harrison, 2014). Several educational research sources advocate for inquiry-based instruction that is assessed using performance-based assessments (Moss, 1992;Harlen, 2000;Erdogan, Campbell, & Abd-Hamid, 2011;Puncochar & Klett, 2013;Harrison, 2014).…”

“…Thus, the performance-based assessment's score can accidentally be biased by a scorer. For example to reduce scoring bias Erdogan, Campbell, & Abd-Hamid, (2011)…”

“…There are some possible points of improvement that could be addressed with further research. There is still a lot of debate as to the validity of using multiple-choice questions to evaluate HOT skills (Moss, 1992;Harlen, 2000;Erdogan, Campbell, & Abd-Hamid, 2011;Puncochar & Klett, 2013;Harrison, 2014). Further studies could explore if the validity of the assessments was compromised by changing some of the free-response questions to multiple-choice questions.…”

“…For me, science education is more than the memorization of vocabulary; it is developing the ability to use higher-order thinking (HOT) skills to solve problems and the ability to apply content-specific knowledge to think logically about issues that the next generation will encounter. In other words, the goal of science education is to help develop scientifically literate individuals who are prepared for the global problems related to science, health, and technology (Erdogan, Campbell, & Abd-Hamid, 2011;Harlen, 2000;National Research Council [NRC] (2012); Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Lead States, 2013; Roseman et al, 2016;Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1990). To accomplish this goal, there are many instructional techniques that can be used, and one of them is inquiry-based learning.…”