The Science Goddess asks on September 18 an intriguing question. She says she’s “just your average school marm” teaching Advanced Placement Biology.
How do they (students) know they know? … I’m having a hard time with the “diagnostic.” What questions should one ask oneself in order to determine a level of understanding? How do you know if you know something?
She asks the same question education ISVs must answer when creating software. Here’s my response. What’s yours?
You ask a good question. Terman and Merrill asked a similar question when they constructed the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. They summarized their response in two ways.
First, they assumed that a person uses standard vocabulary and grammar for a topic. So, they tested for vocabulary and grammar (logic) of a topic. They used easier vocabulary to test more advanced concepts (logic, grammar).
Second, they winnowed questions down to five generic stems for multiple choice questions: what is the same, what is different, what doesn’t belong, what is missing, and what comes next. Then, they used these stems to create test questions.
Classroom teachers wanting students to demonstrate precision and accuracy (with the teacher setting criteria for success) with academic content still may use versions of this testing.