Assessment of Experimental Skills in Physics : A Comparison

Abstract

The acquisition of experimental skills is widely regarded as an important part of sci-ence education. Models describing experimental skills usually distinguish between three dimen-sions of an experiment: preparation, performance and data evaluation. Valid assessment proce-dures for experimental skills have to consider all these three dimensions. Hands-on tests can es-pecially account for the performance dimension. However, in large-scale assessments the analysis of students' performances is usually only based on the products of the experiments. But does this test format sufficiently account for a student's ability to carry out experiments? A process-oriented analysis that considers the quality of students' actions, e.g. while setting up an experi-ment or measuring, provides a broader basis for assessments. At the same time it is more time-consuming. In our study we compared a process-oriented and a product-oriented analysis of hands-on tests. Results show medium correlations between both analysis methods in the perfor-mance dimension and rather high correlations in the dimensions preparation and data evaluation.