Assessment for Learning in Inquiry Based Science Education: From Individualistic to Socio-cultural Perspectives

The study looks at assessment for learning and Inquiry Based Science Education —IBSE— as concepts established in a diversity of geographical areas, where the traditional summative assessment shapes what most individuals share as being experienced as assessment. Based on Leontiev and Radford’s activity theory perspectives, this study looks critically at assessment for learning within IBSE activity research shaped by an individualistic approach to learning. The thesis proposed a movement towards an approach using a socio-cultural perspective. The researcher's process of learning structured the analytical process.
The main contribution was the analysis and the results of researcher movement from a view of assessment considering learning as a psychological process in the mind, independent of the everyday life of individuals, towards one considering the inseparability of collective and individual consciousness in everyday life. Learning was finally conceived as the collective process where the individual’s subjectivity changes while he or she is interacting with others in a historical moment with shared meanings, artifacts, knowledge and relationships. The researcher’s learning is described as identifying and differentiating forms of researching assessment, changing the researcher’s perspective on research, and imagining a new theoretical approach to assessment for learning.