Planning for a System of Principled Assessment Designs of Inquiry (PADI)

Sri International, Menlo Park CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will support the development of a conceptual framework and a collection of development resources for Web-based assessments of science inquiry, Principled Assessment Designs for Inquiry (PADI. PADI seeks to provide a practical, theory-based approach to developing high-quality assessments of science inquiry by combining developments in cognitive psychology and research on science inquiry with advances in measurement theory and technology. The interdisciplinary PADI research team combines the expertise of two major nonprofit research organizations-SRI's Center for Technology in Learning and the Educational Testing Service's Research Division. Application of this framework and statistical model has the potential to address many of the issues arising from the situation-specific science inquiry assessment of our work of SRI and that of others. The long-term objectives of PADI are to provide a systematic process for developing assessment tasks; an organized set of assessment development resources, reusable task templates and generally stated rubrics, and a statistical model supporting more rigorous analyses of student learning. The planning grant will support the intensive interactions and collaborative design activities that will produce a rapprochement in our team's ideas, strategies, and methods. We will accomplish this goal through co-developing (1) a narrative description of the PADI assessment development framework, (2) one or more prototype assessment tasks conforming to the framework, and (3) the conceptual design of the PADI assessment development support system.