The potential of assessment in science

Agnihotri, Vishnu and Nishchal Shukla, Nishchal and Bhandari, Apoorva (2009) The potential of assessment in science. Learning Curve (12). pp. 27-30.

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Abstract

Before we speak of assessment in science, we need to understand what the goals of science education are, so that we may know what it is that we want to assess. The National Focus Group (of the National Curriculum Framework) document on the teaching of science lists Options “observation, looking for regularities and patterns, A All are animals. making hypotheses, devising qualitative or C Lion, Man and crocodile D Lion, man, crocodile, fly and are animals. fish are animals mathematical models, deducing their consequences, verification or falsification of theories through observation and controlled experiments” as the steps of the scientific method. The above stated process skills have to be developed while working on certain content, indeed, content in multiple areas. For instance, the skills of observation and looking for regularities (similar to classification into groups), for example, can be developed both while working with different types of leaves, as well as while working with different type of materials like glass, wood, steel, etc We believe that as more and more stakeholders recognize the power of large scale assessment, there will be further investments of effort into deriving many more types of insights from assessment data. We share, below, one example of what else might be possible to glean from data. This analysis shows how even five years of schooling has virtually no impact on addressing a misconception on the concept of respiration.

Item Type:	Articles in APF Magazines
Authors:	Agnihotri, Vishnu and Nishchal Shukla, Nishchal and Bhandari, Apoorva
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Education, Elementary education, Early childhood education
Subjects:	Social sciences > Education
Divisions:	Foundation Publications
Full Text Status:	Public
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/703
Publisher URL:	http://apfstatic.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-...

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