Visualizing chemistry teachers’ enacted assessment design practices to better understand barriers to “best practices”

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam G. L. Schafer ◽  
Victoria M. Borland ◽  
Ellen J. Yezierski
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Formative Assessments ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Specific Method ◽  
High School Chemistry ◽  
Chemistry Teachers ◽  
Assessment Design ◽  
Teachers Beliefs ◽  
Representational Level

Even when chemistry teachers’ beliefs about assessment design align with literature-cited best practices, barriers can prevent teachers from enacting those beliefs when developing day-to-day assessments. In this paper, the relationship between high school chemistry teachers’ self-generated “best practices” for developing formative assessments and the assessments they implement in their courses are examined. Results from a detailed evaluation of several high school chemistry formative assessments, learning goals, and learning activities reveal that assessment items are often developed to require well-articulated tasks but lack either alignment regarding representational level or employ only one representational level for nearly all assessment items. Implications for the development of a chemistry-specific method for evaluating alignment are presented as well as implications for high school chemistry assessment design.

Chemistry critical friendships: investigating chemistry-specific discourse within a domain-general discussion of best practices for inquiry assessments

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 452-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam G. L. Schafer ◽  
Ellen J. Yezierski
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Chemistry Teacher ◽  
High School Chemistry ◽  
Teacher Discourse ◽  
Chemistry Teachers ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Teacher Professional ◽  
Assessment Beliefs

High school chemistry teachers struggle to use assessment results to inform instruction. In the absence of expert assistance, teachers often look to their peers for guidance and support; however, little is known about the assessment beliefs and practices of high school chemistry teachers or the discourse mechanisms used as teachers support one another. Presented in this paper are the results from analyzing a discussion between five high school chemistry teachers as they generated a set of best practices for inquiry assessments. To analyze the discussion, a novel representation called a discourse map was generated to align the analyses conducted on chemistry teacher discourse as they temporally occurred. Results show the utility of the discourse map for evidencing critical friendship and assessment practices evoked by the teachers during the discussion of best practices. Implications for the structural considerations of materials and chemistry teacher professional development are presented as well as potential future investigations of teacher discourse regarding the use of data to inform instruction.

Characterizing high school chemistry teachers' use of assessment data via latent class analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 296-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Harshman ◽  
Ellen Yezierski
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Latent Class Analysis ◽  
Formative Assessment ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Teaching Experience ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Formative Assessments ◽  
Class Analysis ◽  
High School Chemistry ◽  
Chemistry Teachers

In this study, which builds on a previous qualitative study and literature review, high school chemistry teachers' characteristics regarding the design of chemistry formative assessments and interpretation of results for instructional improvement are identified. The Adaptive Chemistry Assessment Survey for Teachers (ACAST) was designed to elicit these characteristics in both generic formative assessment prompts and chemistry-specific prompts. Two adaptive scenarios, one in gases and one in stoichiometry, required teachers to design and interpret responses to formative assessments as they would in their own classrooms. A national sample of 340 high school chemistry teachers completed the ACAST.Vialatent class analysis of the responses, it was discovered that a relatively small number of teachers demonstrated limitations in aligning items with chemistry learning goals. However, the majority of teachers responded in ways consistent with a limited consideration of how item design affects interpretation. Details of these characteristics are discussed. It was also found that these characteristics were largely independent of demographics such as teaching experience, chemistry degree, and teacher education. Lastly, evidence was provided regarding the content- and topic-specificity of the characteristics by comparing responses from generic formative assessment prompts to chemistry-specific prompts.

Investigating high school chemistry teachers’ assessment item generation processes for a solubility lab

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam G. L. Schafer ◽  
Ellen J. Yezierski
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Chemistry Teacher ◽  
High School Chemistry ◽  
Item Generation ◽  
Chemistry Teachers ◽  
Pedagogical Content ◽  
Assessment Item ◽  
Teacher Professional ◽  
Guidelines And Standards

Designing high school chemistry assessments is a complex and difficult task. Although prior studies about assessment have offered teachers guidelines and standards as support to generate quality assessment items, little is known about how teachers engage these supports or enact their own beliefs into practice while developing assessments. Presented in this paper are the results from analyzing discourse among five high school chemistry teachers during an assessment item generation activity, including assessment items produced throughout the activity. Results include a detailed description of the role of knowledge bases embedded within high school chemistry teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and the processes used to enact these knowledge bases during planned formative assessment design. Implications for chemistry teacher professional development are posited in light of the findings as well as potential future investigations of high school chemistry teacher generation of assessment items.

Guiding teaching with assessments: high school chemistry teachers’ use of data-driven inquiry

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Harshman ◽  
Ellen Yezierski
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
High School Chemistry ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
Chemistry Teachers ◽  
Classroom Assessments ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Specificity Of Learning

Data-driven inquiry (DDI) is the process by which teachers design and implement classroom assessments and use student results to inform/adjust teaching. Although much has been written about DDI, few details exist about how teachers conduct this process on a day-to-day basis in any specific subject area, let alone chemistry. Nineteen high school chemistry teachers participated in semi-structured interviews regarding how they used assessments to inform teaching. Results are reported for each step in the DDI process. Goals – there was a lack in specificity of learning and instructional goals and goals stated were not conducive to informing instruction. Evidence – at least once, all teachers determined student learning based solely on scores and/or subscores, suggesting an over-reliance on these measures. Conclusions – many teachers claimed that students either did or did not “understand” a topic, but the teachers did not adequately describe what this means. Actions – very few teachers listed a specific action as a result of analyzing student data, while the majority gave multiple broad pedagogical strategies to address content deficiencies. The results of this study show the limitations of teachers' DDI practices and inform how professional development on DDI should have a finer grain size and be based in disciplinary content.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document