Guest editorial: Toward a technology for science assessment

Abstract

As we move toward the twenty-first century, computer technology continues to make inroads into every aspect of modern life. Computer microchips are revolutionizing the information processing capabilities of everything that runs on electricity. While computers are gaining wide acceptance in science education as innovative computer-based teaching and learning tools are developed and implemented, their role in educational assessment is clearly the next frontier. While computers have been making their way in education, performance assessment has also come to the fore as a major component of science education reform. Calls for hands-on and process-oriented science education have led to challenges to the existing product-oriented testing measures (which enjoy a virtual monopoly over educational testing). Along with calls for process-based and hands-on science come increasing demands on educators and educational researchers to devise suitable hands-on and processoriented assessment procedures to match the new curriculum objectives. However, administering and scoring nontraditional tests, especially at the national level, are not easy tasks. In this regard, computer technology may provide the needed platform for developing and administering science assessment. How computer technology might be used in science assessment is the primary focus of this special issue. The writing of this volume has brought together members of the educational research community, the science instructional community, the science curriculum development community, and test developers in science from the Educational Testing Service. The articles presented here not only provide a review of the trends and issues in computer-based science assessment, but also challenge us to think critically about the role of computer technology in assessment more generally. The employment of computers in assessment offers hopes and risks. One issue is whether computerbased testing can deliver the kind of validity and reliability test-makers and test-takers have come to expect. Another issue is whether computer-based assessment can be made to correspond to well-established theories of learning, that is, whether they will provide not just an efficient means of testing but an interactive information processing environment as well. Most of the contributors to this volume agree that, while promising, considerable research and development is needed before we can make full use of computer technology for large-scale performance assessment in science. Still, one is tempted to dream that once we have deeper insights into how the mind works and how performance is related to cognitive processes, we can improve process-based assessment tasks that the computer will take over. In time, a more profound understanding of human-computer interactions may lead to the development of an exemplary technology suitable for large-scale performance assessment in science. If such a dream technology emerges, students will benefit cognitively and affectively, and the rewards of science learning will be more meaningful for them and for their instructors.