This study aims to develop assessment which measures learning progressions for important scientific concepts such as oxidation-reduction (redox) and to identify students¡¦ zone of proximal development (ZPD) through teaching practice incorporating assessment feedback.
The assessment items of redox were developed based on the framework of the BEAR (Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research) Assessment System. Six experts from chemistry, science education, and educational assessment, and three high school chemistry teachers with fruitful instructional experiences were recruited into the assessment team. Through 24 panel discussions, 28 ordered multiple-choice items were developed. Two samples of Taiwanese middle-school students participated in the test development: one for item revision and the other for validation. Sample 1 and 2 consisted of 626 middle school students (304 8th graders and 322 9th graders) and 903 9th graders, respectively.
The materials for instruction integrated assessment feedback were designed by the researcher and two middle-school science teachers through seven group meetings. A teaching experiment was implemented to examine the effect of assessment feedback on students¡¦ understandings of redox and to identify their ZPD. The teaching experiment employed a quasi-experiment with a non-equivalent-group pretest-posttest design. Participants were 196 eighth graders (101 boys and 95 girls) from three middle schools.
The findings showed that (a) the BEAR assessment system and Rasch measurement approaches provided a feasible framework for developing validated tools to assess learning progressions; (b) the empirical data supported students¡¦ learning of redox concept usually progressed ¡§from uni-structure to multi-structure¡¨ and ¡§from discrete sub-concepts to integrated concepts¡¨; (c) the teaching practice integrated assessment feedback effectively facilitated students¡¦ understanding of scientific concepts; (d) the assessment of learning progressions provided a mechanism for identifying students¡¦ ZPD and helped realize the abtract idea of ZPD in teaching practices.
The main contributions of the study included (a) demostrating how to carry out the idea of ZPD into teaching practices through linking learning progressions and ZPD; (b) presenting how to apply BEAR assessment system and Rasch techniques to develop tools for assessing learning progressions; (c) developing a set of items for assessing learning progressions of redox and a series of materials for teaching practices integrated assessment feedback.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0726112-170327 |
| Date | 26 July 2012 |
| Creators | Liu, Kun-shia |
| Contributors | Ying-Yao Cheng, Ching-Yang Chou, Huann-Shyang Lin, Huey-Por Chang, Wen-Chung Wang |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0726112-170327 |
| Rights | user_define, Copyright information available at source archive |
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