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About the assessment items on this website

The items and other resources available on this site were developed by AAAS Project 2061 with funding from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. The items are different from most multiple choice science test items in that they:

In addition, data gathered during national field tests provide an up-to-date description of science learning broken out by gender and whether English is the student’s primary language. The data also show how much growth has occurred between middle and high school, on what are primarily middle school ideas.

How the items were developed. Each item has gone through a rigorous developmental process. Items were revised multiple times using feedback obtained at each step of the process.

The website presents each item as it appeared in the national field tests and includes student response data indicating the percent correct at each grade level, by gender, and by English or non-English as the students’ primary language; the misconceptions that are embedded in answer choices; and the distribution of responses from our national sample. For the “Evolution Project,” there are pretest and posttest data available as well.