Developing Evaluative Thinking Skills in Secondary School Students Using Assessment Mastery for Learning in Biology

Abstract

           The research aims to Building an educational unit based on assessment strategies for learning (AFL), identifying the effect of this educational unit in developing evaluative thinking skills among secondary school students, as the descriptive approach was adopted in building the educational unit and the stages of the general model (ADDIE) for designing the units, and the researcher formulated its events according to assessment strategies for learning, which included educational objectives in light of the topics of the biology book prescribed for the fourth grade of middle school and the daily teaching plans for teaching the experimental group according to assessment strategies for learning and the control group according to the traditional method, and the researcher prepared an activity record for each student as an achievement file, then verified their validity by presenting them to a group of experts in the specialization of teaching methods, measurement and evaluation, and to identify the effect of this unit in developing evaluative thinking skills among secondary school students, the experimental approach was adopted with partial control for two equivalent groups with a pre- and post-test prepared by the researcher to measure evaluative thinking skills, which consisted in its final form of (40) paragraphs, Distributed over three main skills, namely (skill of setting standards - skill of evaluating evidence - skill of identifying errors and fallacies), from which nine sub-skills emerge, namely (skill of identifying basic assumptions - skill of predicting the consequences of an action - skill of sequencing biological information - skill of distinguishing between facts and opinions - skill of identifying information relevant to the topic - skill of identifying erroneous conclusions - skill of judging the credibility of information - skill of identifying the reasons included and not included in a situation - skill of evaluating arguments and evidence). After verifying the apparent validity of the research tool, the validity of the structure, the discriminating power, the difficulty coefficient and the stability, which reached (0.83) according to the Cronbach's alpha equation, the researcher applied the research tool in the first semester of the year (2024 - 2025) to the two research groups after the end of the experimental period, which lasted for (4) weeks for the period from Sunday 10/27/2024 to Sunday 11/24/2024. 2024 with three classes per week, and the researcher deliberately chose (Al-Fursan Preparatory School for Boys) located in the center of Al-Muthanna Governorate to represent the research community, which was determined as secondary school students in government day schools affiliated with the General Education Directorate in Al-Muthanna for the academic year (2024-2025). The researcher randomly selected the research sample, which amounted to (81) students from the fourth grade of middle school from a total of six adjacent and close sections in terms of the number of students, as he specified Section (A) to represent the experimental group (38) students and Section (B) to represent the control group (38) students after excluding the failing students. The researcher collected the data and conducted a statistical analysis of it using the program (Microsoft Excel) and the statistical bag program (SPSS). The researcher reached the following results:

1- There are statistically significant differences at the significance level (0.05) between the average scores of the students of the two research groups in favor of the experimental group in the post-evaluative thinking skills test.

2- Teaching biology using the educational unit based on assessment strategies for learning has had a great impact in making students more motivated to learn because of the activities and strategies it contains that allow them to participate effectively and make them responsible for their learning, which contributed to the development of their skills in evaluative thinking.

Based on the results of the research, the researcher recommended the necessity of using assessment strategies for learning in teaching biology, and the necessity of training biology teachers before and during service on how to use these strategies.