Science process skills/Introduction

Introduction:


One of the major objectives of science teaching is to inculcate scientific temper and to develop scientific attitude among children. This can be accomplished only when teaching, learning and evaluation in science aim to develop and assess the process skills among children. Mostly science teachers resort to evaluate the achievement of a child in science through certain achievement tests and examinations, and very rarely they make an attempt to assess the process skills. The existing practices of assessment are not encouraging changes in teaching style and learning objectives which are essential for learning with understanding through the use of process skills. It is clear that the present ways of assessing children emphasis testing to recall information and a very little attention is paid to the process based outcomes.

Criteria for Assessment
Inorder to assess science process skills, it is necessary to identify various criteria for different process skills. These creiteria should be in behavoral terms so that it could be possible to assess them with a sense of objectivity and systematicaly.

Child Performance: A Base for Assessment of Process Skills:
The following are some of the main ways of assessing process skills through children performance.