Alternative Technologies for Large Scale Science Assessment: Instrument of Education Reform1

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Abstract
Educational reform in the United States has been stymied, in part, by the mismatch between curricular reform (with its emphasis on problem solving and process) and traditional accountability systems (with multiple‐choice tests, largely of factual recall). If teachers teach to the test, and they do, curricular reform is blunted. The purpose of this study was to create and evaluate alternative technologies for assessing science process understanding of elementary school students, technologies that align with curricular reform. Hands‐on science investigations and their surrogates (laboratory notebooks, computer simulation, paper‐and‐pencil exercises) were developed and then evaluated as to their reliability, validity, and utility for use in large scale assessment. In addition, each of the alternative technologies was compared with a traditional science achievement test. Evidence presented suggests that they are reliable, valid, and measure aspects of science achievement not tapped by traditional multiple‐choice tests.

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