Against Skills‐based Testing in Science

Abstract

In recent years, considerable attention has been focused on the need to develop effective and efficient strategies and procedures for the assessment of students’ laboratory work, on the assumption that only when practical aspects of doing science are rewarded through allocation of marks and grades will teachers give these activities the curriculum priority that many believe they should have. There is no doubt that examinations do exert a significant influence on the curriculum, and can promote or hinder the adoption of particular classroom activities. So, in one sense, the Ontario Ministry of Education's statement in 1987 that assessment of laboratory work should constitute 15% of the final mark in “all Intermediate and Senior Division science courses”, is to be welcomed. So, too, is the growing interest in the assessment of laboratory work in the USA, Australia and New Zealand, and the renewal of interest in the United Kingdom, where such assessment has a long history. Increasingly, however, the emphasis for such assessment seems to be shifting towards a skills‐based approach. In my view, this represents an undesirable trend – one that should be strenuously resisted by teachers. It is my contention that the skills‐based approach is philosophically unsound (because it is not based on a valid model of science), educationally worthless (because it trivialises learning), pedagogically dangerous (because it encourages bad teaching), professionally debasing (because it de‐skills teachers) and socially undesirable (because of powerful hidden messages concerning control and compliance). Instead of skills‐based testing, an approach that recognises the holistic and idiosyncratic nature of scientific inquiry, and affords teachers a more active, decision‐making role, is advocated.