Towards a Framework for Assessing 21st Century Science Skills

This paper offers a framework for designing technically-sound assessments for measuring 21st century skills in the context of science education. It is organized in five sections. In the first section, I examine the challenges of defining and understanding 21st century skills. In the second section, I discuss 21st century skills in the context of science education and make an attempt to define the constructs that are relevant to their assessment. In the third section, I map out these constructs according to four well-known large-scale science assessments frameworks: the National Assessment for Educational Progres