Unpacking inquiry skills from content knowledge in geoscience: a research and development study with implications for assessment design

摘要

Recently there has been expressed need for authentic inquiry assessments that can differentiate students' content knowledge from their inquiry skills. Additionally there has been expressed need for such assessments particularly in the geosciences, given the nature of the visualisations, the datasets and the form of communication (i.e., topographical maps, cross-sectional drawings, etc.) used. In response to these calls, we first designed a supplemental instructional and assessment module for honing middle school students' content knowledge and inquiry skills in the domain of geosciences, namely, plate boundaries. Secondly, we evaluated, using our assessment tasks, six classes of middle school students' content knowledge and inquiry skills in this domain. Thirdly, we used factor analysis to empirically demonstrate that content knowledge and inquiry skills can be assessed as separate forms of knowledge. Five factors were empirically demonstrated: some of these represent content knowledge exclusively, some of these represent inquiry skills exclusively, and some of these include both content and inquiry within the same strand. Results are discussed with regard to instructional implications and assessment design.