Shih-Chao Yeh, Chun-Yen Chang, Van T. Hoang Ngo
We developed and validated an animation-based assessment (ABA) method for evaluating high school students’ inquiry competencies in Taiwan’s 12-Year Curriculum. Contextualized in atmospheric chemistry involving methane and hydroxyl radicals, ABA integrated dynamic simulations, tiered multiple-choice and open-ended tasks, and process tracking on the CloudClassRoom platform, the assessment focused on measuring two inquiry skills: causal reasoning and critical thinking. The results of 26,823 students revealed that the ABA effectively differentiated student performance across ability levels and academic disciplines, with open-ended items sensitive to higher-order reasoning. Gender difference was not observed, indicating the gender-free design of the developed ABA. While the ABA supports diagnostic insights, limitations need to be addressed, including the underassessment of modeling and creative experimentation skills. Therefore, it is necessary to include open modeling tasks and AI-powered semantic scoring. The developed ABA contributes a scalable, competency-aligned framework for inquiry-based science assessments. © 2025 by the authors.
Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, 116, Taiwan; Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences and Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, 116, Taiwan; Department of Earth Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, 116, Taiwan; Department of Biology, Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, 65145, Indonesia; Graduate School of Education, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taoyuan, 320314, Taiwan
