Diagnostic testing of science concepts K-16

As humans continue to fundamentally alter many systems that sustain life on earth, it is becoming increasingly important that citizens understand basic scientific processes and be able to apply them to reasoning about coupled human and natural systems. We present here the development, application, and interpretation of diagnostic assessment items that measure students’ ability to reason with scientific models of dynamic systems. The items are designed not to identify students’ misconceptions per se, but rather to diagnose patterns in student reasoning that underlie misconceptions and unscientific reasoning. The items are organized around frameworks that define the content that students are expected to know, and the practices they need to engage in when reasoning with that content. These practices include understanding the structure and navigating a hierarchy of systems from the molecular to ecosystem levels; tracing matter, energy and information within and between these systems; and reasoning about largely irreversible changes in these systems over time. These items are being used to help direct instructional changes in large introductory undergraduate biology courses, and to provide empirical evidence on student reasoning to aid in the development of learning progressions toward environmental science literacy across the K-12 range. The relationships between informal reasoning about embodied experience and principled reasoning with scientific models are discussed with respect to these items.