An Introduction to Padi Task Templates (Padi Technical Report 3)

Abstract

Principled Assessment Designs for Inquiry (PADI) is a project supported by the National Science Foundation to improve the assessment of inquiry in science learning. PADI is developing a design framework for assessment tasks, with a particular focus on tasks that stress concepts and problem solving, building and using models, or cycles of investigation. Previously PADI developed structures called design patterns for laying out in a narrative form the elements for assessment arguments. This report introduces PADI task templates and task specifications. Task templates provide an object model framework for the more nuts-and-bolts level of design, and task specifications are blueprints for individual tasks expressed in this framework. A task template articulates a conceptual assessment argument in terms of the elements and processes of operational assessment tasks. The focus in this report is on the rationale and structure of templates, illustrated with a relatively simple example. The issues of design processes, authoring, implementation, and operation are discussed elsewhere. This report is accompanied by two appendices that provide more detailed treatments of both evidence-centered design and the UML object model, which have evolved through the work of PADI.