Systemic Functional Analysis and Science Examinations
The challenges that are presented by a science examination question may be a true test of knowledge and ability or they may arise from the structure of the question itself. In the second case candidates may fail a question simply because they do not under
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Systemic Functional Analysis and Science Examinations
Abstract The challenges that are presented by a science examination question may be a true test of knowledge and ability or they may arise from the structure of the question itself. In the second case candidates may fail a question simply because they do not understand what they are being asked to do. Often it is difficult to determine why an incorrect or inappropriate answer is given. Is it because the candidate does not comprehend the science or is it because the candidate does not comprehend the question? Cognitive analyses of science examination questions show that many incorrect answers can be attributed to the expectations of the candidates. This being said, one should also consider the linguistic structures that are involved. Proficiency in a scientific subject requires a proficiency in the language by which this subject is communicated. Yet there are different levels of proficiency, and if the level of language does not match that of the subject then comprehension failure is inevitable. It follows that linguistic analysis should play a part in the evaluation of examination questions. Although there are many forms of linguistic analysis, one of the most effective is systemic functional analysis. Keywords Examinations • Assessment • Systemic Functional Analysis • Scientific Register • Schema Theory
1.1 Comprehension Failure 1.1.1 Unfair and Unhelpful Questions This book owes its conception to some animated in-service training sessions that I gave to science teachers. These sessions were in response to the expansion of the English National Literacy Strategy and their purpose in part was to persuade science teachers to take a greater role in the development of reading and writing skills. As a way of kindling interest I displayed several questions from the English National Curriculum Tests. These questions had been answered
A. Day, The Structure of Scientific Examination Questions, SpringerBriefs in Education, DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-7488-9_1, © The Author(s) 2014
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incorrectly by many children because they had not properly understood the text of the questions. My intention was to show that, by improving literacy, it should be possible to improve examination performance and, for this reason, the development of literacy strategies should be seen as a worthwhile undertaking. However, instead of inspiring the audience, the overhead images provoked considerable resentment and even anger. Many of the teachers argued that the questions were badly written and unfair to their pupils and no one felt that it was necessary to adapt their teaching in order to address the problems created by ‘pointless’ assessments. Although their antipathy was alarming, their comments were not entirely unreasonable for, very often, the structure of the questions did seem to influence the quality of the answers. In the following three years I analysed a number of examination papers from the English National Curr
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