Benő Csapó http://www.staff.u-szeged.hu/~csapo/

Assessments for Evidence-Based

Science Education:

From Good Practices to Research

UNIVERSITY OF SZEGED INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

Outline

• IBSE programs in Europe

• Assessment in IBSE in Europe

• New approaches to assessment in

science education, the potential of

technology

• Research for evidence-based renewal of

science education

• Conclusions for policy

IBSE programs in Europe

History of Inquiry-Based Projects in

Europe

• Early Inquiry-Based Projects in Europe

– SINUS and SINUS-Transfer (Germany)

– La main à la pâte (France)

– Pollen (EU)

• The recommendations of the Rocard report (2007)

• IBSE projects in the European Union Seventh Framework Programme

The Rocard Report

Michel Rocard

(president)

Peter Csermely

Valérie Hemmo

Doris Jorde

Dieter Lenzen

Harriet Wallberg-

Henriksson

Recommendations of the Rocard Report

1) Because Europe’s future is at stake decision-makers must demand action on improving science education from the bodies responsible for implementing change at local, regional, national and European Union level.

2) Improvements in science education should be brought about through new forms of pedagogy: the introduction of inquiry-based approaches in schools, actions for teachers training to IBSE, and the development of teachers’ networks should be actively promoted and supported.

3) Specific attention should be given to raising the participation of girls in key school science subjects and to increasing their self-confidence in science.

4) Measures should be introduced to promote the participation of cities and the local community in the renewal of science education in collaborative actions at the European level aimed at accelerating the pace of change through the sharing of know-how.

5) The articulation between national activities and those funded at the European level must be improved and the opportunities for enhanced support through the instruments of the Framework Programme and the programmes in the area of education and culture to initiatives such as Pollen and Sinus-Transfer should be created. The necessary level of support offered under the Science in Society (SIS) part of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development is estimated to be around 60 million euros over the next 6 years.

6) A European Science Education Advisory Board involving representatives of all stakeholders, should be established and supported by the European Commission within the Science in Society framework.

CarboSchools+ European network of regional projects for school partnerships on climate change research

CoReflect Digital support for Inquiry, Collaboration, and Reflection on Socio-Scientific Debates

Mind the Gap Learning, Teaching, Research and Policy in Inquiry-Based Science Education

HIPST History and Philosophy in Science Teaching

EUCUNET European Children´s Universities Network

YOSCIWEB Young people and the images of science on websites

MOTIVATION Promoting positive images of SET in young people

S-TEAM Science-Teacher Education Advanced Methods

ESTABLISH European Science and Technology in Action Building Links with Industry, Schools and

Home

FIBONACCI Large scale dissemination of inquiry based science and mathematics education

PRIMAS Promoting Inquiry in Mathematics and Science Education

KIDSINNSCIENCE Innovation in Science Education - Turning Kids on to Science

SED Science Education for Diversity

TRACES Transformative Research Activities. Cultural diversities and Education in Science

PROFILES Professional Reflection-Oriented Focus on Inquiry-based Learning and Education through

Science

Pathway The Pathway to Inquiry Based Science Teaching

INQUIRE Inquiry-based teacher training for a sustainable future

Pri-Sci-Net Networking Primary Science Educators as a means to provide training and professional

development in Inquiry Based Teaching

SECURE Science Education Curriculum Research

ECB European Coordinating Body in Maths, Science and Technology Education

EU FP7 Projects on Science Education

From assessment in science

education to assessment in

IBSE

Assessment in Science Education

Janet Harley Brown, Richard J. Shavelson:

Assessing Hands-on Science: a Teachers’ Guide to Performance Assessment

(SAGE Publications, 1996)

Assessment in IBSE

Wynne Harlen:

Assessment & Inquiry-Based Science Education: Issues in Policy and Practice

(IAP SEP, 2013)

Assessment in IBSE in Europe

Assess Inquiry in Science, Technology and

Mathematics Education

(ASSIST-ME)

Strategies for Assessment in Inquiry

Learning in Science

(SAILS)

EU FP7 IBSE Projects with Focus on

Assessment

The ASSIST-ME project

„The overall aim of ASSIST-ME project

is to provide a research base on

effective uptake of formative and

summative assessment for inquiry-

based, competence oriented Science,

Technology and Mathematics (STM)

education.”

The SAILS project

„SAILS partners are

developing a series of

units in which

exemplar inquiry

activities are

described alongside

opportunities

for assessment of the

inquiry skills.”

www.sails-project.eu

The SAILS project has received funding from

the European Union’s Seventh Framework

Programme [2012-2015]

SAILS Partners

Audiovisual Technologies, Informatics & Telecom. Belgium

INTEL Performance Learning Solutions Limited Ireland

Dublin City University (DCU) Ireland

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH) Germany

Hacettepe University (HUT) Turkey

Instituto de Educação da Universidade de Lisboa Portugal

Jagiellonian University (JU) Poland

King's College London (KCL) UK

Malmö University (MaH) Sweden

University of Piraeus Research Centre (UPRC) Greece

University of Southern Denmark (SDU) Denmark

University of Szeged (US) Hungary

Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Safárika v Kosiciach (UPJS) Slovakia

Framework Development for SAILS

• Inquiries (content, process, skills)

• Disciplinary content knowledge – Big ideas

– Conceptual development (conceptual change, misconceptions)

– Learning progression

• Reasoning – Operational reasoning

– Higher order thinking skills

– Scientific reasoning

• Application of scientific knowledge (scientific literacy) – Applied areas

– Application through transfer

Inquiry Skills

• Wenning:

– Identify a problem to be investigated

– Formulate a hypothesis

– Design experimental procedures to test the prediction

– Conduct a scientific experiment; collect meaningful data, organize, and analyze data accurately and precisely

– Apply numerical and statistical methods to numerical data to reach and support conclusions

– Using available technology, report, display, and defend the results of an investigation to audiences that might include professionals and technical experts

• Fradd:

– Questioning

– Planning

– Implementing

– Concluding

– Reporting

– Applying

Cognitive Abilities to be Developed by

IBSE

• intelligence

• creativity

• critical thinking

• scientific reasoning

• problem solving

PISA 2012: dynamic problem solving

PISA 2015: collaborative problem solving

Reasoning Skills Relevant for Mastering,

Organization and Application

of Scientific Knowledge

• control of variables

• organization, seriation, class inclusion, classification, multiple classification, set operations

• combinatorial reasoning, operation of binary logic

• probabilistic reasoning, risk estimation, correlational reasoning

• relations, relational reasoning

• ratio, proportional reasoning

• measurement, product of measures

• analogical reasoning, inductive reasoning

• causality

• hypothesis generation and hypothesis testing

Technology based assessment:

New potentials for research in

science education

New Approaches to Assessment in

Science Education

• The potential of technology – frequent, precise, inexpensive assessments with

immediate feedback

– innovative item formats, log-file analyses

• Measuring the outcomes of education, technology-based summative assessments – computerized tests in PISA

• Technology-based assessment for learning, formative and diagnostic assessments – the eDia in Hungary

Reconsidering the potential

of assessment

“If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”

Kelvin

“Measure what is measurable, and make

measurable what is not so.”

Galilei

“Not everything worth measuring is measurable and

not everything measurable is worth measuring.”

Einstein (paraphrase)

Significance of Technology-Based

Assessment in Improving Science

Education

• It makes possible to design experiments for precise comparison of different science education methods (e.g. measurement of the efficiency of IBSE)

• It supports the everyday school educational processes, provides feedback both for students and teachers

• It supports collecting data for evidence-based improvement of science education

Developing an online

diagnostic assessment system

in Hungary

for Grades 1-6

Assessment domains

reading, mathematics and

science

Developing Diagnostic Assessments

A project implemented by the

Center for Research on Learning and

Instruction University of Szeged

Two phases: 2009-2011, 2012-2014

edia.hu

http://edia.hu

English

http://edia.hu/?q=en

Publications / Books

Demo test

Online Diagnostic Assessment

System

• A complex system for supporting learning and teaching

• Based on the analysis of learning and developmental processes, and the outcomes of learning See -> framework development

• An online assessment platform See -> eDia

• An item bank containing thousands of items in innovative formats See -> demo test for item formats

• Teacher training preparing the teachers for the utilization of the system

The assessments are based on a

three-dimensional framework

PISA TIMSS Diagnostic

- application - content - content

(literacy) - reasoning - reasoning

- application - application

The Science Framework

• Csapó, B. & Szabó, G.

(Eds.). (2012). Framework

for diagnostic assessment

of science. Budapest:

Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó.

Download in .pdf

Characteristics of the Online

Diagnostic Assessment System

• Serving ca. 600 000 students (grades 1-6)

• Communicating with ca. 20 000 teachers

• Making the service available in ca. 3 000 schools

• Managing ca. 10 000 test items

• Maintaining and analyzing students’ data

• Providing both students and teachers with sophisticated feedback in user friendly format

Strengthening the scientific

foundations of science

education: evidence-based

science education

New Standards for Educational Research

Scientific Research in Education

Committee on Scientific Principles

for Education Research

Editors: Richard J. Shavelson and

Lisa Towne

(National Research Council, 2002)

Evidence-Based Education Policy

Evidence in Education:

Linking Research and Policy

(OECD, 2007)

Philosophy of Evidence-Based Policy

Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.

In God we trust. All the others must bring

data.

Where is the evidence?

Evidence-Based Science Education

Receives Growing Attention

• Google:

„evidence-based” and „science education”

2009. 02. 06: 63 900 results

2015. 05. 25: 309 000 results

Evidence-Based Improvement of

Science Education

• from opinion-based to evidence-based

decision making

• from good practices to scientifically

established changes

• from subjective assessment to objective

measurement

Consolidating the Scientific

Foundations of Science Education

• Research for evidence-based renewal of

science education

– providing students with well organized

disciplinary knowledge

– developing students’ mind

– improving scientific literacy

Conclusions for Policy

• Intensifying the research on science education Paraphrasing the Rocard report: „Research on science education now”

• Capacity building, training young researchers for science education research

• Research-based teacher education and professional development of teachers

www.staff.u-szeged.hu/~csapo

Thanks for your attention!

10:40-11:10

• 30 min