Using Evidence: An Analysis of US and German Science Teaching and Learning
(Using Evidence)

Collaborating Institutions: WestEd; BEAR Center, UC Berkeley; Stanford University; CRESST, UC Los Angeles; University of Münster; University of Munich; Max Planck Institute for Human Development (MPI); University of Zurich

Funded by: National Science Foundation; German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

WestEd Participants: Alice Fu, Cindy Lee, Steven Schneider (co-PI), Mike Timms

BEAR Participants: Nathaniel Brown, Yongsang Lee, Mark Wilson (co-PI)

Stanford Participants: Erin Furtak, Richard Shavelson (co-PI)

UCLA Participants: Joan Herman (co-PI), Sam Nagashima

Münster Participants: Tina Beinbrech, Berenike Gais, Kornelia Möller (co-PI)

Munich Participants: Birgit Klötzer, Beate Sodian (co-PI), Claudia Thörmer

MPI Participants: Ilonca Hardy

Zurich Participants: Elsbeth Stern (co-PI)

The Using Evidence project is a multi-national research collaboration that aims to develop a framework for characterizing and assessing the use of evidence in scientific reasoning in elementary, middle, and high school. The framework is intended to be wide-ranging and curriculum-general. Currently, the framework is being applied to both written assessments and video recordings of teacher-led discussions from classrooms in the US, Germany, and Switzerland in the context of learning about buoyancy.

The BEAR Center has been centrally involved in the development of the framework and its application to written assessments administered to American middle and high school students. The BEAR Center has developed construct maps, items, a set of scoring procedures, and the technical calibration of the written assessments. The expected uses of data derived from this implementation of the framework include (a) validating the framework and illustrating its application to written assessments of scientific reasoning; and (b) measuring students’ actual use of evidence in science learning.