Middle School Science Teachers’ Conceptions of Assessment Practice Throughout a Year-long Professional Development Experience

ABSTRACT

Classroom assessment and the use of student performance data to inform instructional decisions have significant potential to help students meet the learning goals of science education. Research has shown that process-oriented assessment practices are challenging and sometimes ignored aspects of teaching, partly because teachers’ conceptions of assessment practice do not reflect a cycle of assessment that continually informs instruction. This study explores middle school science teachers’ conceptions of assessment practice based on drawn conceptual models and interviews that were gathered as part of a year-long professional development intervention. Results indicate that participants initially conceived of assessment practice in terms of tangible elements. Changes were seen, however, across the PD as several teachers developed conceptions that were more iterative, in which frequent assessment was used to inform future instruction. These findings raise important questions for how PD can most effectively support teachers’ adoption of research-based conceptions of quality science assessment practices.

Acknowledgments

We thank all of the teachers who participated in this project and shared their teaching, ideas, and conceptions with their colleagues and our project staff.

Disclosure Statements

• We, the authors, have complied with the ethical standards in the treatment of our sample as defined by the American Psychological Association.

• We, the authors, claim no conflict of interest or financial benefit from the result of this study and its findings.

Notes

¹ Since one teacher dropped out due to medical reasons, reducing the number of our participants from 12 to 11, most comparisons are made using percentages rather than absolute numbers.

² Teri is a pseudonym, as are the names of the other teacher participants in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spencer Foundation under Grant #201400153. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this study are those of the authors and not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation.