Measuring student knowledge and skills

Measuring Student Knowledge and Skills
64
OECD 1999
Figures 15 and 16 show the outcome of applying these criteria to the concepts and content of sci-
ence. Figure 15 lists major scientific themes, with a few examples of the concepts relating to them. These
broad concepts are what is required for understanding the natural world and for making sense of new
experience. They depend upon and derive from study of specific phenomena and events but they go
beyond the detailed knowledge that comes from study of these things. The concepts listed in Figure 15
are given to exemplify the meanings of the themes; there is no attempt to list comprehensively all the
concepts which could be related to each theme. 
The concepts given as examples in Figure 15 indicate that the knowledge that will be assessed
relates to the major fields of science: physics, chemistry, biological sciences and earth and space sci-
ences. Test items are classified by the major field of science as well as by the theme, area of application
and process which they assess.
Figure 16 lists those areas of application of science that raise issues that the citizens of today and
tomorrow need to understand and to make decisions about. It is these applications which guide the
selection of content for tasks and items within them. Figure 16, therefore, indicates the areas of applica-
tion in which the understanding of the concepts in Figure 15 will be assessed.
Figure 15.
Major scientific themes (with examples of related concepts)
for the assessment of scientific literacy
Structure and properties of matter
(thermal and electrical conductivity)
Atmospheric change
(radiation, transmission, pressure)
Chemical and physical changes
(states of matter, rates of reaction, decomposition)
Energy transformations
(energy conservation, energy degradation, photosynthesis)
Forces and movement
(balanced/unbalanced forces, velocity, acceleration, momentum)
Form and function
(cell, skeleton, adaptation)
Human biology
(health, hygiene, nutrition)
Physiological change
(hormones, electrolysis, neurons)
Biodiversity
(species, gene pool, evolution)
Genetic control
(dominance, inheritance)
Ecosystems
(food chains, sustainability)
The Earth and its place in the universe
(solar system, diurnal and seasonal changes)
Geological change
(continental drift, weathering)
Figure 15.