Kihyun Ryoo

Computer-Guided Inquiry to Improve Science Learning

Automated guidance on essays and drawings can improve learning in precollege and college courses. Engaging students in inquiry practices is known to motivate them to persist in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and to create lifelong learners (1, 2). In inquiry, students initiate investigations, gather data, critique evidence, and make sophisticated drawings or write coherent essays to explain complex phenomena. Yet, most instruction relies on lectures that transmit information and multiple-choice tests that determine which details students recall. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) mostly offer more of the same. But new cyber-learning tools may change all this, by taking advantage of new algorithms to automatically score student essays and drawings and offer personalized guidance.

Pathway Towards Fluency: Using ‘disaggregate instruction’ to promote science literacy

This study examines the impact of Disaggregate Instruction on students’ science learning. Disaggregate Instruction is the idea that science teaching and learning can be separated into conceptual and discursive components. Using randomly assigned experimental and control groups, 49 fifth‐grade students received web‐based science lessons on photosynthesis using our experimental approach. We supplemented quantitative statistical comparisons of students’ performance on pre‐ and post‐test questions (multiple choice and short answer) with a qualitative analysis of students’ post‐test interviews. The results revealed that students in the experimental group outscored their control group counterparts across all measures. In addition, students taught using the experimental method demonstrated an improved ability to write using scientific language as well as an improved ability to provide oral explanations using scientific language. This study has important implications for how science educators can prepare teachers to teach diverse student populations.

Designing and Validating Assessments of Complex Thinking in Science.

Typical assessment systems often measure isolated ideas rather than the coherent understanding valued in current science classrooms. Such assessments may motivate students to memorize, rather than to use new ideas to solve complex problems. To meet the requirements of the Next Generation Science Standards, instruction needs to emphasize sustained investigations, and assessments need to create a detailed picture of students’ conceptual understanding and reasoning processes. This article describes the design process and potential for automated scoring of 2 forms of inquiry assessment: Energy Stories and MySystem. To design these assessments, we formed a partnership of teachers, discipline experts, researchers, technologists, and psychometricians to align curriculum, assessments, and rubrics. We illustrate how these items document middle school students’ reasoning about energy flow in life science. We used evidence from review by science teachers and experts in the discipline; classroom experiments; and psychometric analysis to validate the assessments, rubrics, and automated scoring.

Measuring Knowledge Integration Learning of Energy Topics: A two-year longitudinal study

Although researchers call for inquiry learning in science, science assessments rarely capture the impact of inquiry instruction. This paper reports on the development and validation of assessments designed to measure middle-school students’ progress in gaining integrated understanding of energy while studying an inquiry-oriented curriculum. The assessment development was guided by the knowledge integration framework. Over 2 years of implementation, more than 4,000 students from 4 schools participated in the study, including a cross-sectional and a longitudinal cohort. Results from item response modeling analyses revealed that: (a) the assessments demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties in terms of reliability and validity; (b) both the cross-sectional and longitudinal cohorts made progress on integrating their understanding energy concepts; and (c) among many factors (e.g. gender, grade, school, and home language) associated with students’ science performance, unit implementation was the strongest predictor.

Exploring different types of assessment items to measure linguistically diverse students’ understanding of energy and matter in chemistry

Energy and matter are fundamental, yet challenging concepts in middle school chemistry due to their abstract, unobservable nature. Although it is important for science teachers to elicit a range of students’ ideas to design and revise their instruction, capturing such varied ideas using traditional assessments consisting of multiple-choice items can be difficult. In particular, the linguistic complexity of these items may hinder English learners (ELs) who speak English as a second language from understanding and representing their ideas. This study explores how multi-modal assessments using different types of open-ended items can document ELs’ and English-dominant students’ (EDSs) understanding of energy and matter in chemistry. 38 eighth-grade, linguistically diverse students taught by one teacher at a low-income middle school completed an assessment designed to elicit their ideas about properties of matter and chemical reactions through arguing from evidence, writing explanations, and developing models of chemical phenomena. The results show that the three types of assessment items captured different correct and alternative ideas that ELs and EDSs held. In particular, modeling appears promising as a tool to assess what ELs know about properties of matter and chemical reactions in middle school chemistry, compared to other written items. The findings of this study provide insights into how different types of assessment items can be used to better understand the range of ideas held by linguistically diverse students.