A major challenge of assessing students' science writing derives from the need to simultaneously consider two criteria – scientific argumentation and rhetorical form. This challenge is confounded by a lack of standardized measures for scientific writing. Therefore, this study aimed to create and validate the rubric for scientific writing (RSW), which can be used to provide both formative and summative evaluations of students' scientific writing. Three science teachers and three English/language arts teachers independently used the rubric to score 75 authentic science writing samples from middle and high school classes. The teachers also participated in a focus group to provide in-depth feedback on the strengths, weaknesses, and practical classroom applications of the rubric. Overall, the findings demonstrate that the RSW produces valid and reliable scores of proper scientific argumentation and English rhetoric, which would allow future researchers and teachers to examine how instruction and interventions impact these two aspects of scientific writing.
TopIntroduction
When students are given the opportunity to write in science, they take part in an authentic scientific activity which deepens their proficiency in scientific analysis (Duschl et al., 2007). When implemented purposefully, writing within science classes naturally promotes student inquiry, which then supports their ability to engage in two important science practices: obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information, and engaging in argument from evidence (NGSS, 2013). Unfortunately, despite numerous content learning and cognitive development benefits, writing receives limited time and attention at the secondary level (Miller et al., 2016). For example, a recent survey indicates that most of the writing students complete in science class requires filling in the blanks or short responses, with nearly a third of middle and high school science teachers reporting they never assign theory, argumentation, or research papers (Drew et al., 2017).
In the United States, by high school, little writing occurs in content classes and most of students’ writing occurs in English class (Graham & Harris, 2012). However, as early as 2007, prompted by an increased focus on content coverage on high stakes tests, even English teachers reported reducing time on writing. This emphasis on content acquisition and moving away from writing is reflected in National Assessment of Educational Progress scores: Only 27% of 12th grade students’ writing skills were deemed at least “proficient” (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012).
Fully addressing this dearth in writing instruction and skills would require recruiting all content-area teachers to integrate writing into their instruction. However, such an endeavor must be led by discipline experts because writing’s purpose and form differ in each subject, and generic content-area literacy strategies have proven insufficient (Warren, 2012). Disciplinary literacy experts note that while general skills (e.g., summarization, notetaking) promote writing fluency across genres, genre-specific writing conventions must be learned to communicate effectively in subject areas (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). For example, within the field of science, students must be able to create logical and causal connections between questions, evidence, and claims (Akkus et al., 2013).
Unfortunately, through the nature of their preparation, the disciplinary experts, science teachers, may not feel prepared to assess student writing (Cutler & Graham, 2008). A prevalent orientation in writing research indicates that to be truly effective instructors of writing, teachers need to identify as writers themselves and regularly practice writing (Colby & Stapleton, 2006), so they can develop their own self-efficacy for the skill. Poor self-efficacy in writing has been noted as one of the key barriers for teachers to integrate writing in instruction (Dempsey et al., 2009); how can teachers evaluate what they feel unable to produce? Therefore, a viable solution is to provide science teachers with a valid and specific tool to evaluate scientific writing and identify specific aspects of scientific rhetoric where students need instruction and support.
Additionally, teachers are not the only ones struggling to assess student writing – researchers have yet to develop a standardized measure of scientific writing. In many instances, instrument validity and reliability for researcher-created tools is not reported, limiting the opportunities to make cross-study comparisons (Miller et al., 2015). While many studies have employed various tools to evaluate students’ writing in science class, these measures tend to be prompt specific. For instance, Hand and colleagues (2004) created a rubric to give feedback and score 10th grade students’ essays regarding the ethics surrounding DNA research. While useful for the purpose of the study, most of the criterion (such as explaining Gene Expression and identifying the DNA manipulation controversy) would not be applicable to other writing samples.