Assessing the Best: NAEP's 1996 Assessment of Twelfth-Graders Taking Advanced Science Courses

摘要

The Goals 2000: Educate America Act of 1994 made improving student achievement in science a national priority by stating as one of its goals that all students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter. As the nations only ongoing survey of what students know and can do in various academic subjects, including science, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a valuable tool for monitoring the countrys progress in meeting this goal. The framework of the 1996 main NAEP assessment in science was organized along two dimensions. The first dimension divided science into three major fields: earth, physical, and life sciences. The second dimension defined characteristic ways of knowing and doing science: conceptual understanding, scientific investigation, and practical reasoning. The recommendation to study twelfth-grade students taking advanced science courses came in response to criticism that the main NAEP assessment did not include an adequate number of questions at advanced levels of difficulty that could reflect what the best-prepared students know or can do in science. The advanced science study was therefore designed to obtain information specifically related to the performance of the nations top science students.