High school chemistry teachers have daily access to student assignments via formative assessments. How teachers use those assessments to evaluate student understanding and inform their teaching practice is described by the process of data-driven inquiry, although not in a content- or context-specific manner. Based on a previous qualitative study, a survey called the ACAST (Adaptive Chemistry Assessment Survey for Teachers) was developed to probe chemistry teachers’ beliefs and self-reported actions regarding their data-driven inquiry practices. This survey was designed to make comparisons between responses from general and chemistry-specific probes. The chemistry-specific probes mimic real classroom scenarios, such as setting learning objectives, choosing items that align with that objective, and making conclusions based on example student data. The probes are adaptive to teachers’ responses, adding interesting analytic challenges balanced by the potential for a richer description of their assessment beliefs and practices and more robust interpretation of responses. Results will characterize the process that high school teachers use to inform their teaching via formative assessment results through the use of inferential statistics. Meaningful comparisons will be made from domain general to chemistry-specific items and also within the chemistry-specific items. Suggestions to improve the use of data-driven inquiry in high school chemistry along with key implications for research will also be presented.

Using the ACAST to characterize high school chemistry teachers’ data-driven inquiry practices

249th National Meeting (2015)

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