Characterizing College Science Assessments: The Three-Dimensional Learning Assessment Protocol

Many calls to improve science education in college and university settings have focused on improving instructor pedagogy. Meanwhile, science education at the K-12 level is undergoing significant changes as a result of the emphasis on scientific and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. This framework of “three-dimensional learning” is based on the literature about how people learn science and how we can help students put their knowledge to use. Recently, similar changes are underway in higher education by incorporating three-dimensional learning into college science courses. As these transformations move forward, it will become important to assess three-dimensional learning both to align assessments with the learning environment, and to assess the extent of the transformations. In this paper we introduce the Three-Dimensional Learning Assessment Protocol (3D-LAP), which is designed to characterize and support the development of assessment tasks in biology, chemistry, and physics that align with transformation efforts. We describe the development process used by our interdisciplinary team, discuss the validity and reliability of the protocol, and provide evidence that the protocol can distinguish between assessments that have the potential to elicit evidence of three-dimensional learning and those that do not.

长期以来，诸多旨在改进高等院校科学教育的倡议，均聚焦于优化教师的教学方法。与此同时，K-12阶段的科学教育正经历重大变革，这一变革源于对科学与工程实践、跨学科概念以及学科核心观念的重视。这一三维学习（three-dimensional learning）框架，其构建基于阐释人类学习科学知识的规律，以及如何帮助学生将所学知识学以致用的相关研究文献。近期，高等教育领域也正推进类似变革，将三维学习融入大学科学类课程当中。随着此类改革不断推进，对三维学习开展评估将变得至关重要：既要使评估与学习环境相适配，也要评估改革的落实程度。本文介绍了三维学习评估协议（Three-Dimensional Learning Assessment Protocol，3D-LAP），该框架旨在刻画并支持生物学、化学及物理学领域内适配改革需求的评估任务开发。本文详述了跨学科团队所采用的开发流程，讨论了该协议的效度与信度，并提供实证证据表明，该协议能够有效区分可激发三维学习相关证据的评估任务，与无法达成这一目标的评估任务。