Development of a Level-Based Test for Assessment of Student Conceptual Understanding in Learning Combustion

Improving students’ conceptual understanding is a fundamental objective of science education, which requires a deep exploration into the development process of students’ understanding in learning a specific scientific concept. This study aims to explore two main questions: (1) How to delineate junior high school students’ conceptual understanding of combustion and (2) How to develop the corresponding test to analyze and investigate this understanding. Taking learning progressions as the theoretical framework, this study established a three-level division of students’ understanding of combustion. Based on the level division, this research developed a set of assessment questions, comprising ten questions, to evaluate this understanding. The test questions were given to 800 eighth-grade students in China before and after the combustion lessons. The results of qualitative and quantitative analyses support the rationality of dividing students’ conceptual understanding of combustion into three levels. Students with a low level of understanding rely on rote memorization of the combustion definition. They can recognize common combustion phenomena based on their learned examples. Students with the intermediate level of understanding have a grasp of both the definition and three requirements for combustion. They can judge whether a substance burns under given conditions. Students with a high level of understanding master the nature of combustion. They can explain combustion phenomena at a submicroscopic level. The findings provide a valuable reference for effectively assessing students’ conceptual understanding of a specific scientific concept and implementing corresponding instructional interventions. This study further confirms the effectiveness of dividing students’ conceptual understanding into different levels and developing corresponding tests. This approach to developing level-based assessments can also be applied to other scientific concepts.