Measuring transformative modeling: A framework of formatively assessing students' deep conceptual understanding in physical sciences

Measuring students' conceptual understanding can provide important information for learning and teaching. Many formative assessment approaches elicit students' prior knowledge without identifying the sources of their misconceptions. This proposal presents a framework that guides the development of formative assessment to measure student understanding of physical science topics using three types of connections. Particularly, we assess how students link physical states, processes and mechanism, integrate different scientific models, and connect scientific knowledge to everyday experience. Based on this framework, we construct sample items on sinking and floating and piloted the items with 18 preservice middle grades science teachers. Analyses of student responses to these sample items provide evidence of the effectiveness of the framework in extracting information valuable to improve learning and instruction. Criteria and implications of using this formative assessment framework in science classrooms are then discussed.