Performance Assessment On Plant Physiology Experiment Teaching In The University

Performance assessment is one of the most focused areas in educational measurement. In brief, performance assessment is to assess students'knowledge and skills through answers and products that students present themselves. It becomes the most focused area because of the negative effects of the standardized test. The multiple-choice test items only can evaluate what the students know, but cannot evaluate what the students can do. In the latest ten years, many scholars in America,England, Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan have done much theory explorer on the performance assessment. They also have participated in a lot of research work to assess the skills and abilities that the traditional paper-and-pencil test cannot do. Now, performance assessment has been widely used in American and Canadian schools, especially in the class assessment. In fact, because of the clear criteria, flexible approaches and effective results, performance assessment has become more and more important in the international science teaching, especially in the experiment teaching. On the other side, in China, most science experiment assessments are conducted with paper and pencil in non-laboratory settings now. There are several items in the paper-and-pencil test to evaluate the knowledge about experiment principles, procedures, materials and phenomena. The items cannot reflect the full range of the laboratory experience, which are concerned about cognitive domain, affective domain and psychomotor domain, not only the knowledge domain. In fact, the science experiment work is an involved performance task and it needs more abilities and qualities of students. The multiple objects of experiment teaching also require the multiple assessments. In addition, there is less stress of tests in universities than in middle schools. All these factors make it possible to use the performance assessment to evaluate the science experiment in university. Thus, teachers must use the multiple assessments to authentically assess and improve science laboratory skills of student,not only the paper-and-pencil test. The purpose of this research is to use the performance assessment in plant physiology experiment class in the university. The goal of the performance assessment is to assess and improve students'laboratory skills, including the experiment design, observation, operation and reasoning. It also includes assessing...