Stufen experimenteller Kompetenz

A main objective of physics education is to help students develop the skills needed to successfully prepare, perform and evaluate experiments. This paper presents the results of a standard-setting procedure, which led to the description of four levels of experimental competence. The data used for the standard setting came from an on-screen test with simulated experiments administered to N = 1194 students in middle school. In contrast to other tests this instrument also assesses skills beyond the planning and evaluation of experiments. The test, in particular, requires students to set-up a functional experimental arrangement and to make measurements. The standard setting was performed by three experts utilizing the bookmark-method. They worked on a booklet with test items ordered by their difficulties. The bookmark-method requires the experts to identify those items that mark transitions to new levels of competence. This way, cut scores are obtained for the transition points between two levels of competence. Based on the items that fell into a particular level of competence (i. e. between two transition points) the hierarchy of levels of scientific inquiry described by the Institut für Qualitätsentwicklung im Bildungswesen (IQB) was refined to include descriptors more specific to setting up experiments and doing measurements.