Developing NGSS-Aligned Tasks to Assess Elementary School Students' Ability to Explain Energy-Related Phenomena

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Developing NGSS-Aligned Tasks to Assess Elementary School Students' Ability to Explain Energy-Related Phenomena
Language: English
Authors: Herrmann-Abell, Cari F. (ORCID 0000-0002-6334-7154), Hardcastle, Joseph, DeBoer, George E.
Source: Grantee Submission. 2020Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (2020).
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 12
Publication Date: 2020
Sponsoring Agency: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Contract Number: R305A180512
Document Type: Reports - Research
Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: Elementary Education
Junior High Schools
Middle Schools
Secondary Education
High Schools
Descriptors: Energy, Scientific Concepts, Concept Formation, Elementary School Students, Persuasive Discourse, Logical Thinking, Scoring Rubrics, Middle School Students, High School Students, Student Evaluation, Alignment (Education), Test Validity, Test Reliability
Abstract: We have developed assessment tasks aligned to NGSS that require students to use practices along with disciplinary core ideas to make sense of energy-related phenomena. In this paper, we present an analysis of field test data and feedback from expert reviewers on the validity and reliability of a set of elementary school tasks. These tasks focused on assessing students' ability to write explanations or arguments about energy-related phenomena. Field test data were scored using rubrics based on the claim, evidence, reasoning (CER) framework. Using Rasch modeling, we evaluated the reliability of the task's rubric categories. We found that rubric categories fit well to the Rasch model. Categories were found to cluster in a hierarchy of difficulty in which reasoning and applying science idea categories were more difficult than evidence, which were more difficult than claim. The observed hierarchy in difficulty of CER categories is consistent with other studies and validates the tasks as measures of the CER framework. In addition, a panel of experts agreed that the tasks were aligned to the targeted NGSS practices and ideas. Overall, our results show that our procedure for task development resulted in valid and reliable NGSS-aligned assessment tasks.
Abstractor: As Provided
IES Funded: Yes
Entry Date: 2020
Accession Number: ED605234
Database: ERIC
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