A Study On The Evaluation Of Students In Junior Middle School

Inquiry learning has attracted increasing attention to more and more scholars as one of the focuses in the field of education reform with the world’s paying attention to creative talents in recent years.Meanwhile,Chinese Basic Education Reform also attaches great importance to the reform of educational evaluation and advocates multi-evaluation to students’inquiry ability.It is of great importance to design effective evaluation tools to develop inquiry learning.In the process of teaching practice,however,I find that the New Curriculum Standard have clearly stipulated suggestions of evaluation about inquiry learning,but the evaluation of students is not very in place in practical inquiry activities.There are two main reasons:first,some teachers have not fully understood the connotation of inquiry; second,student evaluation about inquiry learning can not expand under the pressure of realistic conditions such as entering a higher school or the level of running a school. Hereby,I find by literature analysis that there have been lots of studies about evaluation of inquiry learning proliferating all kinds of subjects,but there are also a series of problems such as concept confusion,structural disappearance,limitation of research about evaluation tools,lack of related theory and teaching reflection among teachers on the front.There are also scholars who suggest we improve evaluation method,but the fulfilling degree is not optimistic,which has restricted the development of inquiry learning.Aiming at problems above paragraphs,related theories of inquiry learning and student evaluation are researched in this study using literature analysis,questionnaire method,data analysis method,classroom observation and interview method,and evaluation scales of biology inquiry activities in junior middle school are constructed on the basis.Firstly,there are 15 activities arranged which make out the word " inquiry " definitely in compulsory education textbooks Biology published by the PEP(2012 edition).And divide them from low to high into three classes according to inquiry levels:guiding inquiry,corrected inquiry and opening inquiry.Then set up first grade indexes of evaluation scales according to 6 elements of inquiry activities proposed by the Compulsory Educational Biology Curriculum Standard (2011 edition),and second grade indexes according to the concrete elements of each step proposed by existing research.Secondly,results of the evaluation index questionnaire from teachers on the front are analyzed and indexes are modified using statistical methods,then obtain every weight of scales’indexes using the Analytic Hierarchy Process and we get final evaluation scales of inquiry activities after consulting experts.Last,we carry out empirical study in a junior school using the scales to detect whether the scales are efFective.During the late stages of our empirical study,we make a comparison between experimental class and contrast class from several aspects below such as completion situation of scales,students’examination results,implement of inquiry activities,students’ opinions to the scales,in order to reflect the application effect of the scales.The results of this study show that both the average scores and excellence rate of experimental class in mid-term and final exam are higher than contrast class;in the inquiry activities,the students in experimental class have higher thinking logic,coherence,recognition degree,expression ability in each step than students in contrast class,and they have more careful attitude towards study;From the interview we know that students approve and are willing to use the scales;from the results of classroom observation we can see that the students in experimental class show more enthusiasm.creativity logicality and cooperative spirit and they have better completion situation in inquiry experiments than contrast class.It is concluded from this study after analyzing research results that indexes of the scales in this study are basically suitable for almost all of the inquiry activities given by biology textbooks in junior school,and the student evaluation scales are helpful to promote students’divergent thinking,improve their examination scores,change their attitude towards study at the same time.Nevertheless,students’degrees of participation and application to this kind of evaluation depend on teachers’prestige and headteachers’ coordination.There are also some problems found and need to improve from this study.The main aspects are as follows:1.Some steps of inquiry activities are incomplete because of the school’s conditions.so it is important for teachers to hold the essence of evaluation and use it flexibly;2.The improvement of students’inquiry abilities is a step-by-step process.If we hang on to multiple evaluation,it will still need other teachers’joint attention in order that students’comprehensive abilities can develop substantially;3.We should use multimedia technology ingeniously to highlight the essence of evaluation and simplify the steps of evaluation,which is of great importance to the revolution of evaluation system.In addition,the effectiveness and suitability of the scales still needs further study.