The methods below are suggested ways that can be used to assess student�s ability and rate of progress with the process skills of science. These methods are therefore especially useful for use in an inquiry-based classroom.
Marking rubrics: A marking rubric is a list of experimental abilities. For each ability there are a number of different levels. You need to decide at which level the student is at by observing their work throughout the inquiry session. For example one ability could be planning. You must decide whether the student is poor, satisfactory, or very good at this skill. At each level there are exam-ples of what the student has to show in order to be classed at that level. To obtain a very good; the student might have to show that he can �plan and design experiments correctly and be able to find variables.� A design for a rubric suitable that you could use in an inquiry-based lesson can be seen on the following pages.
Holistic rubrics: As its name would suggest in a holistic rubric all of the criteria are assessed to-gether and not separately as in a normal rubric. Instead of each criterion receiving a score or level, you decide on an overall score or level for the student depending on their overall achievement. The use of a holistic rubric is quicker and simpler than using a normal rubric, but does not allow you to do an exact analysis of separate students abilities. Therefore the use of holistic rubrics should be used only for general assessment and not to provide detailed information about student learning.
Checklists: When making a checklist you need to formulate a list of behaviors or skills that you hope to see a student use in the classroom. Then you tick off these skills if and when you see them being used by your students. Each student should have his or her own checklist. You have to decide when and how to observe students. You also need to decide for how long to observe students and at which stages of the lesson or experiment. Checklists are easy to use and design and provide a good picture of the skills that a student is using. However, they are difficult to make comprehensive and often do not give you a complete picture of your students abilities.
Posters: Having students produce a poster to explain how and why they conducted an experiment the way they did is much better than simply asking them to do a lab write-up for homework. Poster making allows students to work in groups, which means they will discuss and justify their ideas with each other. Students will take more pride in a poster than a normal lab write-up be-cause posters provide students with the opportunity to present their work to other students. Posters can be used to assess both students knowledge about a specific topic and their ability at using science process skills in completing an experiment. Assess posters with the use of a check-list or rubric.
Science portfolios: Another often cited idea for assessing students is to use science portfolios. Throughout the term or year you ask student to keep all the work they have done. At the end of the term or year they then have to put together a portfolio of their work. They have to decide which work to include and which work to discard. They have to justify their decisions and why they feel that some work is better than other. You can then assess the science portfolio and the student�s justifications using a rubric.
Multiple choice and standard testing: Although these are traditional methods of assessing students and mostly test for the learning and memorization of science content knowledge, they can also be used to assess student�s knowledge of the science process skills. Questions should be formulated especially to test student�s knowledge of science as inquiry.
Read more in 'Teaching inquiry-based Science' by Mark Walker.