APU Science Report for Teachers 9: Assessing Investigations at Age 13 and 15

This APU Science report for teachers is based on a selection of the questions used in the surveys of students aged 13 and 15 in the surveys carried out in 1981 and 1982 to assess the performance of investigations. These were complete investigations carried out individually by students working alone. Reference is also made to some additional information gathered later in a joint study by the APU Science and Language teams in which students worked in pairs and were asked to discuss how they would carry out the investigation, thus providing some insight into how they made decisions about what to do.

Contents

 Preface: background to the APU Science surveys Introduction

What do we mean by a scientific problem? Types of problem Using the categorisation to generate problems

Individual investigations – category 6 Stages in solving the ‘Woodlice’ problem Modes of presentation Recording the responses Results for four investigations Summary Discussion

Factors affecting performance *Implications: For teachers For assessment