Problem solving assessment

Although educators and employers highly value problem solving and have put extensive effort into understanding successful problem solving, there is currently no efficient way to evaluate it. Science educators regularly make use of concept inventories and perceptions surveys (aka: attitudes and beliefs) to evaluate instruction. However, these only touch on a fraction of what is learned in a course. Students apply a range of processes, expectations and bits of knowledge when solving a physics problem and some of these are impacted by the course. The question is how can we identify what these processes, expectations and knowledge are, how can we teach them and then how can we measure them? While developing the CAPS (Colorado Assessment of Problem Solving), I identified 44 processes, expectations and bits of knowledge used to solve an in depth real world problem. In this presentation CAPS and some of what was learned during the development will be presented.