ASE 2021 Annual Conference Online

The session will include two speakers who are leading research projects jointly funded by the Wellcome Trust, Gatsby Foundation and Royal Society.

Project Calibrate has advocated designing “tests worth teaching to” and produced examination questions on GCSE biology, chemistry and physics topics. The questions promote hands-on and minds-on approaches in practical work. Sibel Erduran will present findings from a national study on pupils’ and teachers’ views of the questions as well as their views on the learning resources that accompany the tests.

The Practical Assessment in School Science (PASS) project aims to identify features of written examination questions that discriminate between students who have experienced different types and amounts of practical work in GCSE science lessons. The project is comparing the performance on practical-themed examination questions of students who undertook practical work themselves as a hands-on activity with those who either watched a teacher demonstration, or watched a video demonstration, or read about it, e.g. as presented in a textbook. Professor Chris Harrison and the PASS team will present the findings from the first phase of the project.