This document discusses the assessment of practical skills in science. It defines practical skills as those involved in scientific investigation and experimentation. There are several broad stages of experimental work, including problem formulation, experiment design, execution, observation, and data interpretation. Assessment of practical skills is important for several reasons, including defining competencies. Assessment can involve continuous observation by supervisors over time. Practical skills assessed include coordination, manipulation, precision, communication, and creation. Criteria for assessing these skills and converting assessments to grades is also discussed.

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Assessment of
Practical Skills

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The Nature of Practical Skills & Abilities
All sciences have an empirical basis and involve practical pursuits
and activities.
For the understanding of science, practical skills are very much
essential.
The practical skills not only help to understand the scientific
phenomenon but also help to understand science process skills.
Practical skills and abilities can be defined as those that
form an integral part of any investigative process in
science and through which the investigator obtains first
hand experience of some scientific phenomenon or
relationship.

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The Nature of Practical Skills & Abilities
The following broad stages are associated with
experimental work in science.
1. The perception and formulation of a problem
2. The design and planning of an experimental procedure
3. The setting up of the experiment and its execution
4. The conduct of measurements /observations and their
systematic recording.
5. The interpretation and evaluation of the experimental
observations and data

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Assessment of practical skills
 Assessment of practical skills – why?
1. Practical skills are central to professional practice
2. Defines what students take to be important
3. Highlights the competencies, if delegated to staff in placements
4. Lack of consistency between assessors seen as less important than other
subjects
 Assessment of practical skills – how?
1.Students work with one or more supervisors or mentors
2.Continuous assessment - the supervisor observes the student’s performance
over a period of time and indicates when competence is reached
3.Can take into account the views of other members
4.Assessment usually developed in partnership

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Practical Skills
 Following practical skills are essential for
Science learning:
Coordination
Manipulation
Precision
Articulation or Communication
Creation

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Assessment of practical skills
 Coordination: The integration of activities, responsibilities or skills and abilities
of putting information in systematic order
1. Recording - tabulating, charting, working systematically, recording completely.
2. Comparing - noticing how things are alike, looking for similarities, noticing identical
features.
3. Contrasting - noticing how things differ, looking for dissimilarities, noticing unlike
features.
4. Classifying - identifying groups and categories, deciding between alternatives.
5. Organizing - putting items in order, establishing a system, filing, labeling, arranging.
6. Outlining - employing major headings and subheadings, using sequential, logical
organization.
7. Reviewing - identifying important items.
8. Evaluating - recognizing good and poor features, knowing how to improve grades.
9. Analyzing - seeing implications and relationships, picking out causes and effects,
locating new problems.

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Assessment of practical skills
 Manipulative skills are a category of motor skills - those skills and abilities of
handling materials and instruments.
1. Using an instrument - knowing the instrument’s parts, how it works, how to
adjust it, its proper use for a given task and its limitations.
2. Caring for an instrument - knowing how to store it, using proper settings,
keeping it clean, handling it properly, knowing its rate capacity and transporting it
safely.
3. Demonstrating - setting up apparatus, describing parts and functions and
illustrating scientific principles.
4. Experimenting - recognizing a question, planning a procedure, collecting data,
recording data, analyzing data and drawing conclusions.
5. Constructing - making simple equipment for demonstrations and investigations.
6. Calibrating - learning the basic information about calibration, calibrating a
thermometer, balance, timer and or other instrument.

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Assessment of practical skills
Precision: The ability of a measurement to be consistently reproduced.
Refinement in a measurement, calculation, or specification, especially as
represented by the number of digits given.
Articulation or Communication: Ability to express and receive
written, verbal and/or non-verbal language and the ability to interact with
others in a respectful and professional manner:
1. Speak, read, listen and write in English / National language at a level that
provides for safe and accurate understanding of words and meanings.
2. Recognize own non-verbal signals and interpret those received from others
while considering individual differences in expression and associated
meaning.
3. Elicit and respond to information from clients, colleagues and others

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Assessment of practical skills
Creation
 Creative skills and abilities of developing new
approaches and new ways of thinking
1.Planning ahead - seeing possible results and
probable modes of attack, setting up hypotheses
2.Designing - identifying new problems
3.Inventing - creating a method, device, or technique
4.Synthesizing - putting familiar things together in a
new arrangement, hybridizing, drawing together.

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Developing Criteria for Assessment of
Practical Skills
 Outcome Based Assessment Criteria
 Assessment of students’ practical abilities in science subjects is based on
the outcomes of practical exercises carried out by them.
 Outcomes based assessment focuses on using frequent and varied
assessment techniques to guide students toward achieving the outcomes
set for a course.
 The outcomes of the practical works can be divided into two
classes:
 a) Quantitative
 b) Qualitative
 For quantitative data establish some target value whereas qualitative
information requires dichotomous judgment.

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Developing Criteria for Assessment of
Practical Skills
Process Based Assessment Criteria
 Teacher observes and makes a judgment about the student’s
demonstration of a skill or competency in creating a product,
constructing a response, or making a presentation.
 The emphasis is on student’s ability to perform tasks by producing
their own work with their knowledge and skills.
 Students perform, create, construct, produce, or do something.
 Students deep understanding and/or reasoning skills are needed
and assessed.
 It involves sustained work, often days and calls on students to
explain, justify and defend.

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Developing Criteria for Assessment of
Practical Skills
Converting Assessments in Grades
Some mark or grade expresses the desired end.
Product of an assessment of a student’s performance.
For the achievement of this the raw data derived
immediately from an assessment needs to be
transformed into marks or grads.
The first step is to place all the students in a rank order
provided the final marks or grades are norm-referenced.

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Developing Criteria for Assessment of
Practical Skills
The Moderation of Practical Grades
The most reliable assessment of the student’s practical skills
result from the use of detailed check lists specifying precise
performance criteria.
The function of a moderating procedure is to detect and then
to eliminate, or at least reduce any over or under assessment
to which teacher assessments of practical skills may be
subject at the same time.
Correct any undue dispersion of grades within a teaching test.

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Developing Criteria for Assessment of
Practical Skills
 There are different approaches to moderation of practical
grades:
Moderation via the inspection of student’s notebooks and
written records of practical works.
Use of visiting moderators.
Statistical moderation of teacher based grades.
Inspection of Practical Notebooks etc.
In this procedure the schools should submit the practical
notebooks of the students to an examining board. This
examining board should then scrutinize these practical
notebooks.

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Developing Criteria for Assessment of
Practical Skills
Moderation by Visiting Moderators
It means the assessment by an external
examiner or moderator of the quality of the
student’s practical work carried out in the
course of an actual laboratory session.
This assessment result can be compared with
the grades awarded by the teacher and
appropriate adjustments made to the latter.

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Developing Criteria for Assessment of
Practical Skills
Statistical Moderating Procedures
It means to find some instrument or measure by which the
extent of a teacher’s over or under assessment of his
students, relative to the total examined population, can be
determined.
The choice of a theory examination as a reference standard
for the moderation of practical grades is not beyond criticism.
The main question that arises is that whether any significant
relationship can be assumed to exist between student’s
practical abilities and their theoretical knowledge.

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Assessment of Practical Work
Most of the science teachers consider that practical work is
essential for improving student’s understanding of science
concepts, their manipulative skills and their appreciation of the
way in which scientific knowledge is generated and validated.
Irrespective of teacher’s particular goals, student behavior in
the science laboratory can be grouped into four broad phases
of activity:
1. Planning and design
2. Performance
3. Analysis and interpretation
4. Application

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Evaluation System for the Laboratory
Systems for evaluating student’s activities in
the laboratory can be classified into four
categories:
Written reports
Test items
Laboratory practical examination
Observational assessment

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