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The cognitive demands of secondary science assessment items: Refinements to a classification based on semantic gravity and density
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Type
Book Chapter
Citation
Seah, N. C., Lee, Y.-J., & Ong, Y. S. (2024). The cognitive demands of secondary science assessment items: Refinements to a classification based on semantic gravity and density. In Y. S. Ong, T. T. M. Tan, & Y- J. Lee (Eds.), A diversity of pathways through science education (pp. 99–119). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-2607-3_7
Abstract
Educators have long struggled with evaluating the cognitive demands of assessment items in valid and reliable ways that are also easy to use. A recent approach to meet such an important assessment need involves developing coding schemes based on the Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). In this paper, we propose a major refinement to one such coding scheme that utilizes semantic gravity (SG) and semantic density (SD) codes within the Semantics dimension of LCT. SG codes reflect the level of abstraction of ideal/expected student responses to assessment items: answers to highly abstract questions are less context-dependent and require more generalized responses either drawing across different sections of the syllabus or even between science disciplines. In contrast, SD codes indicate the level of complexity: highly complex questions require more logical reasoning phases and/or multiple steps to generate acceptable solutions. Our research thus expanded (Rootman-le Grange and Blackie, Chem Educ Res Pract 19:484–490, 2018) seminal framework that focused on evaluating college-level chemistry questions for their cognitive demands to now code items across the major science disciplines—chemistry, physics, and biology—at secondary grades. The revised coding scheme (with moderate to substantial interrater reliability indices) was developed with/for short-answer, constructed response items taken from the Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Ordinary-level examinations. While our coding scheme has targeted secondary science questions for 15–16 year olds, it is likely applicable for similar test formats in science at primary, middle-school, senior high, and university levels.
Date Issued
2024
ISBN
9789819726073 (online)
9789819726066 (print)
Publisher
Springer