Research on performance assessment of students’ inquiry skills in China’s elementary schools: a video analysis of Beijing <i>discovering science around us</i>

Abstract

Background It is critical to analyse and evaluate elementary school students’ scientific inquiry skills to promote inquiry-based teaching and learning and to develop students’ scientific inquiry skills. Compared with the analysis of students’ scientific inquiry skills based on paper and pen tests and classroom teaching videos, the direct analysis of primary school students’ video works on the scientific inquiry can more intuitively and comprehensively reflect students’ actual scientific inquiry ability.Purpose This study aims to analyse scientific inquiry abilities of students in Chinese elementary school through video works and to reflect students’ scientific inquiry abilities authentically and comprehensively by using performance assessment.Sample 32 high-integrity physics videos on material science topics were further evaluated for analysis.Design and Methods The study proposed the analytical framework of students’ scientific inquiry skills combined with the existing research, and the content analysis of the participating videos was carried out accordingly, which realized the performance assessment of students’ scientific inquiry skills.Results Only 40.59%entries had completed elements of scientific inquiry. The scores for hypothesis making and reflection evaluation were 1.37 and 1.71, which were relatively complex and showed that students’ performance was weak. The highest scores for the ability to inquire and the view of scientific inquiry were gotten by the students in grade 4 and no outstanding performance was shown by the students in grade 6 .Conclusion First, the lowest level of scientific inquiry was found in making hypotheses and reflective evaluation performance. Second, students’ scientific inquiry skills did’t show a dominant correlation with grade, and students’ inquiry skills don’t necessarily increase naturally with increased knowledge and skills. In addition, the degree of openness to inquiry did not fully characterize students’ inquiry skills. Finally, students with a more systematic view of scientific inquiry had relatively higher inquiry skills.