Refining, Operationalizing, and Describing Scientific Inquiry Instructional Practice Using the Inquiry Science Instruction Observation Protocol (ISIOP): A National Field Test

Education Development Center, Waltham MA

Investigators

Abstract

Project Abstract Education Development Center, Inc. has proposed a three-year REESE Frontier Research empirical project (Measurement, Modeling, and Methods) to develop a training manual and facilitate a national field test of the Inquiry Science Instruction Observation Protocol (ISIOP). The ISIOP was developed with NSF funding. The proposed project will develop observation protocol and scoring rubrics that will be tested for use by science education evaluators. The main objective of the project is to improve the measurement technology and tools for capturing variation in scientific inquiry instruction via classroom observation. The field test will involve 40 evaluation professionals (20 teams) at different schools across the country. They will generate an observation data set of 80 paired observations. The field test will use a stratified sampling strategy to maximize the representation of schools, classrooms and students across the nation in the study. This data set will be used to demonstrate a scientifically sound validity argument supporting the intended interpretation of the scoring rubrics for measuring the nature and extent of scientific inquiry instructional practices exhibited in middle-grades science classroom teaching. The products generated from the project include (1) an observation protocol and scoring rubrics that have been tested for usability and utility across a range of science education program evaluators in various settings; (2) a user?s manual that clearly describes the development process, the derivation of the evidence of reliability and validity, procedural information for using and scoring the protocol, guidelines for establishing inter-rater reliability using the included videotaped examples of teaching, and suggestions about how to coordinate the use of the ISIOP with other instruments to produce a comprehensive research or evaluation plan.