College Students' Scientific Inquiry Ability Assessment

Since middle to late 20th century, the reform of science education is carried out in the United States of America and other countries. How to evaluate the students' ability of scientific inquiry becomes the important evaluation content for national education institutions and the international education evaluation organizations.Despite large volume of studies on research abilities of primary and middle school students,the research on that of college students still remains a vacuum land. This study choose nanjing university freshman, to evaluate the science inquiry ability level.In refer to the science inquiry ability and the science inquiry ability evaluation based on the literature, this research is mainly done the following work: (1) The theoretical study:To define the relevant concepts, the study introduces and analyzes the evaluation methods and evaluation system of scientific research ability at home and abroad, which provides a theoretical basis for the study. (2) The empirical research:The core part of this study.Combined with the PTA, this study to evaluate the evaluation system was confirmed, and the use of worksheet and paper and pen test two methods of scientific inquiry ability to inspect the level of college students.According to the research findings:Students currently have the basic ability to explore;on the whole, the worksheet single score is higher than the paper and pen test, both of them can be used to evaluate the scientific research ability of College students;Between different students have different levels of ability development. Under the condition of students in schools, gender, high school division, undergraduate professional, the difference was significant.In view of the problems found in this study, from college students, teachers and evaluators, the corresponding improvement suggestions are put forward. Colleges adjust the curriculum to strengthen cooperation in various departments;The teacher according to students' aptitude, encourage cooperation between men and women, strengthen the interaction between teachers and students; Evaluators adopt appropriate evaluation system of scientific evaluation; Students accurate positioning itself scientific inquiry ability level and learning to master the ability to upgrade methods.