Science Assessment ~ Ideas ~ Geometric figures, number sequences, graphs, diagrams, sketches, number lines, maps, and oral and written descriptions can be used to represent objects, events, and processes in the real world.

Key Idea: There is no guarantee that ideas based solely on a model are correct.

Sub-Ideas
Items & Student Performance
Misconceptions
NGSS

Students are expected to know that:

Since a model is not identical to the object, event, or process it represents, it may look or behave differently than what it is representing.
The only way to find out how adequately a model represents the behavior of a real world phenomenon is to check and see if the real world phenomenon behaves the way the model predicts it will behave.
If a model and the phenomenon it represents behave differently, one or more significant aspects of the phenomenon are not being represented accurately, or are not being represented at all. Changing which aspects of the phenomenon are represented accurately (and which are not) may lead to a model that behaves more like the phenomenon behaves.

Percent of students answering correctly (click on the item ID number to view the item and additional data)
Item ID Number	Knowledge Being Assessed	Grades 6–8	Grades 9–12
MO068003	If a student makes a drawing of how he thinks evaporation works and it turns out it was incorrect, he should make a new version that more accurately represents what he now knows about evaporation.	55%	57%
MO094001	A model can predict the behavior of the object it represents (e.g. how a roof will perform in a rainstorm), but the predicted behavior may not be exactly the same as the object’s actual behavior because a model is never exactly the same as the object it represents.	55%	57%
MO095001	A model can predict the behavior of the object it represents (e.g., a car crashing into a wall), but the predicted behavior of the object may not be exactly the same as the actual behavior of the object because a model is never exactly the same as the object it represents.	45%	61%
MO069004	If a student makes a drawing of how he thinks people see in the dark and it turns out it was incorrect, he should make a new version that more accurately represents what he now knows about how people see in the dark.	47%	55%
MO067003	Even if an engineer makes a good model of an airplane and discovers that it can fly well in the rain, she still cannot be absolutely certain that the real airplane will fly well in the rain unless she actually flies it in the rain.	43%	49%
MO070004	A model of an object can be used to predict how an object will behave, but the prediction may not be the same as the actual behavior of the object because a model is never exactly like the object it represents.	41%	51%

Frequency of selecting a misconception
Misconception ID Number	Student Misconception	Grades 6–8	Grades 9–12
MOM007	A model can only represent aspects of a phenomenon that are already known; it cannot be used to figure out new things (for example, make an accurate prediction) about what is being represented. This still allows one person to use a model to communicate things he or she already knows about something to other people, even if they do not already know it (Grosslight et al., 1991; Schwartz & White, 2005).	18%	16%
MOM003	A model should look like the object, event, or process it is modeling (with the possible exception that it can be smaller). Therefore, a diagram or graph could be considered a model only if it bore a physical resemblance to what is being represented (Grosslight et al., 1991; Penner et al., 1997; Treagust, et al. 2002; Schwartz & White, 2005).	15%	13%

Frequency of selecting a misconception was calculated by dividing the total number of times a misconception was chosen by the number of times it could have been chosen, averaged over the number of students answering the questions within this particular idea.

No NGSS statements are associated with this idea in the selected project.