Assessment Standards

The assessment standards provide criteria against which to judge the quality of assessment practices. They cover five areas:

A. The consistency of assessments with the decisions they are designed to inform.

B. The assessment of both achievement and opportunity to learn science.

C. The match between the technical quality of the data collected and the consequences of the actions taken on the basis of those data.

D. The fairness of assessment practices.

E. The soundness of inferences made from assessments about student achievement and opportunity to learn.

In the vision described by the Standards, assessments are the primary feedback mechanism in the science education system. They provide students with feedback on how well they are meeting expectations, teachers with feedback on how well their students are learning, school districts with feedback on the effectiveness of their teachers and programs, and policy makers with feedback on how well policies are working. This feedback in turn stimulates changes in policy, guides the professional development of teachers, and encourages students to improve their understanding of science.

Ideas about assessments have undergone important changes in recent years. In the new view, assessment and learning are two sides of the same coin. Assessments provide an operational definition of standards, in that they define in measurable terms what teachers should teach and students should learn. When students engage in assessments, they should learn from those assessments.

Furthermore, assessments have become more sophisticated and varied as they have focused on higher-order skills. Rather than simply checking whether students have memorized certain items of information, new assessments probe for students understanding, reasoning, and use of that knowledge--the skills that are developed through inquiry. A particular challenge to teachers is to communicate to parents and policy makers the advantages of new assessment methods.

Assessments can be done in many different ways. Besides conventional paper and pencil tests, assessments might include performances, portfolios, interviews, investigative reports, or written essays. They need to be developmentally appropriate, set in contexts familiar to students, and as free from bias as possible. At the district, state, and national levels, assessments need to involve teachers in their design and administration, have well-thought-out goals, and reach representative groups to avoid sampling bias.

Assessments also need to measure the opportunity of students to learn science. Such assessments might measure teachers' professional knowledge, the time available to teach science, and the resources available to students. Although difficult, such evaluations are a critical part of the Standards.