Teachers' Design of Recall and Inference Assessment Items After Online Professional Development

• In Event: Issues in Faculty Development

Abstract

Teachers (N = 70) participated in online professional development that instructed them on assessment writing. A subset (N=13) teachers later developed lessons based on the PD, and labeled their assessments as recall or inference. Assessments were analyzed in two rounds of coding to evaluate labeling accuracy. Teachers were only moderately accurate at labeling their own assessment items (73.5%), despite explicit instruction. Importantly, teachers were more likely to label recall items as inference. This suggests teachers overestimate depth of thought required, and many inference items were not high quality. PD performance was correlated with labeling accuracy. Results suggest that teachers may require support in transferring knowledge gained within PD to their practice. Recommendations for future PD on assessment are discussed.

Authors

• Katherine L. McEldoon, YouScience

• Matthew Lancaster

• Glenda Simonton Stump, Self-employed

• Seokmin Kang, Wisconsin Center for Education Research

• Michelene T.H. Chi, Arizona State University