This article is a review of the literature on classroom formative assessment. Several studies show firm evidence that innovations designed to strengthen the frequent feedback that students receive about their learning yield substantial learning gains. The perceptions of students and their role in self‐assessment are considered alongside analysis of the strategies used by teachers and the formative strategies incorporated in such systemic approaches as mastery learning. There follows a more detailed and theoretical analysis of the nature of feedback, which provides a basis for a discussion of the development of theoretical models for formative assessment and of the prospects for the improvement of practice.

Assessment and Classroom Learning

Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Pp. viii, 282. £3·50, paperback £1. 1970. (Cambridge University Press.)

Helping students develop informed views of nature of science (NOS) has been and continues to be a central goal for kindergarten through Grade 12 (K–12) science education. Since the early 1960s, major efforts have been undertaken to enhance K–12 students and science teachers' NOS views. However, the crucial component of assessing learners' NOS views remains an issue in research on NOS. This article aims to (a) trace the development of a new open-ended instrument, the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire (VNOS), which in conjunction with individual interviews aims to provide meaningful assessments of learners' NOS views; (b) outline the NOS framework that underlies the development of the VNOS; (c) present evidence regarding the validity of the VNOS; (d) elucidate the use of the VNOS and associated interviews, and the range of NOS aspects that it aims to assess; and (e) discuss the usefulness of rich descriptive NOS profiles that the VNOS provides in research related to teaching and learning about NOS. The VNOS comes in response to some calls within the science education community to go back to developing standardized forced-choice paper and pencil NOS assessment instruments designed for mass administrations to large samples. We believe that these calls ignore much of what was learned from research on teaching and learning about NOS over the past 30 years. The present state of this line of research necessitates a focus on individual classroom interventions aimed at enhancing learners' NOS views, rather than on mass assessments aimed at describing or evaluating students' beliefs. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 497–521, 2002

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Views of nature of science questionnaire: Toward valid and meaningful assessment of learners' conceptions of nature of science

Our objective has been to develop an instructional theory and corresponding curricular materials that make scientific inquiry accessible to a wide range of students, including younger and lower achieving students. We hypothesized that this could be achieved by recognizing the importance of metacognition and creating an instructional approach that develops students' metacognitive knowledge and skills through a process of scaffolded inquiry, reflection, and generalization. Toward this end, we collaborated with teachers to create a computer enhanced, middle school science curriculum that engages students in learning about and reflecting on the processes of scientific inquiry as they construct increasingly complex models of force and motion phenomena. The resulting ThinkerTools Inquiry Curriculum centers around a metacognitive model of research, called the Inquiry Cycle, and a metacognitive process, called Reflective Assessment, in which students reflect on their own and each other's inquiry. In this article, we report on instructional trials of the curriculum by teachers in urban classrooms, including a controlled comparison to determine the impact of including or not including the Reflective Assessment Process. Overall, the curriculum proved successful and students' performance improved significantly on both physics and inquiry assessments. The controlled comparison revealed that students' learning was greatly facilitated by Reflective Assessment. Furthermore, adding this metacognitive process to the curriculum was particularly beneficial for low-achieving students: Performance on their research projects and inquiry tests was significantly closer to that of high-achieving students than was the case in the control classes. Thus, this approach has the valuable effect of reducing the educational disadvantage of low-achieving students while also being beneficial for high-achieving students. We argue that these findings have strong implications for what such metacognitively focused, inquiry-oriented curricula can accomplish, particularly in urban school settings in which there are many disadvantaged students. (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s1532690xci1601_2)

Inquiry, Modeling, and Metacognition: Making Science Accessible to All Students

Socioscientific issues encompass social dilemmas with conceptual or technological links to science. The process of resolving these issues is best characterized by informal reasoning which describes the generation and evaluation of positions in response to complex situations. This article presents a critical review of research related to informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues. The findings reviewed address (a) socioscientific argumentation; (b) relationships between nature of science conceptualizations and socioscientific decision making; (c) the evaluation of information pertaining to socioscientific issues, including student ideas about what counts as evidence; and (d) the influence of an individual's conceptual understanding on his or her informal reasoning. This synthesis of the current state of socioscientific issue research provides a comprehensive framework from which future research can be motivated and decisions about the design and implementation of socioscientific curricula can be made. The implications for future research and classroom applications are discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 513–536, 2004

Informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues: A critical review of research

Educators who plan science lessons, who develop science curricula, or who evaluate learning, often wonder about students' preconceptions of the material to be taught. Until now, attention has mainly focused on traditional science content (Driver, 1988; West and Pines, 1985). However, content related to the nature of science (for example, science's epistemology and its social context) is receiving increased attention because of interest in teaching science through a science-tech-nology-society (STS) approach or teaching science in concert with the history and philosophy of science (Bybee, 1987; Hodson, 1988; Posner and Strike, 1989; Gruen-der and Tobin, 1991); What are high school students' preconceptions concerning the epistemology and sociology of science? This question is addressed in two related articles that stem from the same research study. This first article describes the development of a new research instrument that monitors students' views on a broad range of STS topics,

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The Development of a New Instrument: "Views on Science- Technology-Society" (VOSTS)

The North American confusion of science with technology can cloud epistemic views. This should be kept in mind as one reads the following analysis of students' views on the epistemology of science. Chances are great that when students talk about science, they are probably talking about technology, specifically medical and environmental technological investigations.

Students' Preconceptions about the Epistemology of Science

High‐school graduates' beliefs about science‐technology‐society. I. methods and issues in monitoring student views

High-School Graduates' Beliefs about Science-Technology-Society. IV. The Characteristics of Scientists.

This article describes the results of a naturalistic study of four student occupational therapists' early fieldwork experiences. Data from interviews, participant-observation and students' daily journals were used to identify students' perspectives on the process and purposes of fieldwork. In addition, the relationship of fieldwork to coursework was explored. Students viewed fieldwork as consisting of phases with certain constants that were present in every placement. The main purposes of fieldwork were seen as being related to application of theory to practice, providing learning opportunities, practising skills, the provision of reality, and personal and professional validation. Coursework and fieldwork were viewed as being closely linked but each involved different processes. From this study, it would seem desirable that initial fieldwork experiences occur early and then are interspersed throughout the curriculum. In addition, fieldwork educators could benefit from becoming more aware of students' perceptions of the wide range of purposes of fieldwork experiences.

Alan G. Ryan

Papers

The Development of a New Instrument: "Views on Science- Technology-Society" (VOSTS)

Students' Preconceptions about the Epistemology of Science

High‐school graduates' beliefs about science‐technology‐society. I. methods and issues in monitoring student views

High-School Graduates' Beliefs about Science-Technology-Society. IV. The Characteristics of Scientists.

Students' perspective of fieldwork: Process, purpose and relationship to coursework