Abstract:

The assessment of the acquired knowledge and skills is necessary to indicate the educational level achieved by students in various academic disciplines, such as physics. The purpose of the research is to develop a method for such an assessment. The objectives of this research include the creation of a method for the objective assessment of students' knowledge and skills acquisition, the experimental testing of the proposed assessment method, the identification of the differentiating ability of the proposed criterion of education (based on the processing of factual data).

The methodological foundations of this research include the systemic approach (that considers the assessment of students' educational level as an integral part of pedagogical monitoring, and monitoring as an information mechanism for managing the quality of education), the qualimetric approach (that considers education as a latent variable, reflected by a set of indicators, which are particular criteria), the competence approach (that orients students towards effective management of existing knowledge and skills for the successful solution of life, social and professional problems), the sociological approach (that considers the educational environment as a leading socially determined factor in the development of a student’s personality), the probabilistic-statistical approach (that considers the use of existing knowledge and skills by students in various types of activity as a probabilistic process, and the assessment of educational level as a statistical measurement based on the processing of primary monitoring information).

The authors of this article substantiate that the mastery of knowledge and skills, or the likelihood of their successful application in educational and professional activities, is a criterion for students’ educational level. A method for assessing the specified parameter based on the analysis of the results of the students’ educational activity is proposed. In the conditions of informatization of education, the proposed method can be implemented on the basis of the use of information systems of adaptive computer testing. The differentiating ability of the proposed indicator and its difference from the existing ones is experimentally assessed involving 2948 students of 2016, 2017, and 2018 years of enrolment at the Department of Physics of Kuban State Technological University (an engineering university in the Russian city of Krasnodar). It is concluded that the likelihood of successful application of knowledge and skills in educational and professional activities, or the knowledge and skills acquisition index, is an educational level parameter as it reflects the effectiveness of the application of existing knowledge and skills to solve problems. The method of objective assessment of this indicator is based on the automated processing of information about the results of the students’ educational activity.

The practical significance of the research results is that the proposed method can be a component of pedagogical monitoring as an information mechanism for managing the quality of education.

Keywords:

Knowledge and Skills Acquisition, Education Level, Pedagogical Monitoring, Assessment.