A Cultural Responsive Approach to International Science Assessment

• In Event: Analyzing cultural production: immigration status, transmigrant youth, and education response

Proposal

This study aims to examine issues of diversity of culture and knowledge construction in international science assessment across contexts. Grounded in sociocultural perspectives (Boykin, 1997; Banks, 1993), critical race theory (Ladson-Billing & Tate, 1995), and feminist pedagogy (Harding, 1993; Collins, 2002), we propose a culturally responsive framework containing three domains of standard rubrics which is multidimensional and operationalized, linking student population characteristics or the cultural characteristics of learners to item assessment, testing procedures and development.
Contextualizing scientific knowledge and concepts effectively in science teaching and assessment has been proved beneficial on students’ test performance, cognitive and psychological processes. For example, the utility of real-world context in science test items (Ahmed & Pollitt, 2007; Ruiz-Primo & Li, 2015; Little & Jones, 2010). Examining the literature shows sparse efforts have been given to address patterns of linguistic and cultural communication and socialization (Solano-Flores & Nelson-Barber, 2001), and cultural assumptions (Parrott et al., 2000) in science assessment items. Research indicates there is a need of procedures that help researchers and science assessment developers to examine and calibrate cultural validity of science assessments. This research, as part of the Equitably Contextualized Science Assessment project (ECSA) project, is drawing light in multicultural education heritages in the U.S. to claim a space for culturally responsive international science assessment.
Grounded theory (Charmaz & Mitchell, 2001) from assessment item analysis and panel reviews is used to conceptualize the characteristics of item information and contextualized knowledge regarding cultural assets, valuable skills, attitudes, and experiences from the subject information representation. Our framework (exemplified in Table 1) echoes what Harding (1993) has focused attention on “strong objectivity” that scientific knowledge is inseparable from the production of knowledge, and those have social and political preconditions and effects, thus the epistemology and ideology they show provide blueprints for educational assessments, including science.
Example Domain-1: Cultural Bias in Science Context
We have come to the first realization that as social psychology research suggests, cultural biases and implicit stereotype threats need to be addressed (Aronson et al., 1999; Steele, 1997) if we are to construct a fair and equitable context in science assessment. Through our theoretical tackling from epistemological and cultural bias (Gay, 2000), and environmental macroaggressions (Sue, 2010), we have examined in depth research on aspects and processes of assessment, and specifically addressed what are some of the factors that could trigger students' psychological threats, such as stereotype threats and identity threats, in science assessment context.
Our finding shows the heightened psychological and common formation of bias are from: status differentiation, gendered behavior, racial bias, language agency, and perpetuation of inequality in possible assessment items and testing procedure. Examples show pathologizing minority cultural values/communication styles, assumption of criminal status. assigning a degree of intelligence to a person of color based on their race, or belief that visible racial/ethnic minority citizens are foreigners in item representation can be deeply problematic. Gender bias manifested in science items, such as associating girls with party decoration making and errands are prevalent, predicting female to be more caring, people-oriented, and relation-centered, and reinforcing the social construction of gender norms and behavior. It is equally disturbing or even more harmful when students encounter hostile or invalidating environment before or during assessment.
Example Domain-2: Equitable and Inclusive Context
We conceptualize that the information representation of a context dwell on a range of measures, and propose five features of relatability, constructivity, applicability, accessibility, and multiple modality, that an equitable and inclusive context must contain.
from Situated Pedagogy to the relatability of the context
“Orner (1996) has argued the importance of understanding the situatedness of learning as something that does not occur in a vacuum. Similarly, relatability refers to a context that is familiar, relatable, authentic, or easy to understand for all students. A relatable context is built on students’ prior knowledge, be it from students’ life or closely aligned with the school curriculum.”
from Culturally Relevant Pedagogy to the constructivity and accessibility of context
“Constructivity reveals a context is constructive in scaffolding scientific thinking and skills. Drawing on students’ funds of knowledge, constructive context taps on their daily learning by doing, "hands-on" activities, experiments, daily practices, routines, personal, social, and cultural experiences. Our analysis shows some of the exemplar contexts have incorporated creating tools at home or school, building models, art projects for drawing and designing things, in a way to be more interactive and relatable to students’ home and community environment.”
“Accessibility specifies a context to engage, affirm and make it accessible for all students including those with special needs. It renders an inclusive view of empowering all learning communities regardless of their identity differences to achieve and excel by eliminating barriers in their learning and assessments. For example, an equity stance would require the language presented in the context should be accessible to all students, specifically, linguistic minority students (i.e., English Language Learners, Non-native language speakers).”
Lastly, we have used the framework to specify a scientific context contains multiple modality, dimensions, and details of information for a comprehensive context (see Figure 1 in Appendix). Different modalities for a science context are encouraged for a diverse range of students, such as in text, visual, and interactive features.
In conclusion, knowledge construction using the critical voices and sociocultural perspectives are explored to counter hegemonic metanarratives, epistemology, and knowledge construction. The assumptions being is a stance on equity believing that assessment should counter hegemonic groups of Western-oriented knowledge, reflect diverse ways of learning and knowing, and what's more, function in social good. It needs to be acknowledged that there is no single, universal right way to conduct or interpret objective knowledge for assessment purposes. If we are to recognize diverse ways of knowing, it is incumbent on us to find assessment methods that reflect and validate this variety. A culturally responsive approach to international science assessment should be capturing common patterns of contextualization of science assessment environment, test items, knowledge construction that students from different racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds would have equal access to encounter and excel.

Author

• Nixi Wang, University of Washington