This two-year demonstration project would develop on-line simulation-based tasks to assess middle school students' higher order learning, focusing on those skills associated with the ability to manipulate and analyze data. The development team includes assessment experts from SRI, researchers from the Concord Consortium and the staff of the Technology Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS) Center for Learning and Teaching. The project's goals are (1) to develop and field test several prototype assessments linked to national standards, (2) to examine the economic and logistic feasibility of these tasks for use in the classroom and (3) to explore scaling the simulation tasks to a level suitable for standardized testing.
