Abstract

In diverse schools nowadays, the assessment of chemistry experimental work is reduced to taking pencil and paper tests about the theory related to the experiment conducted by the students. What happens is that experimental work is not being assessed as such, even though there are proposals based on the assessment of skills focused on designing a problem, formulating and choosing hypothesis, interpreting data and obtaining conclusions. Hodson (1996) criticizes the assesment of specific skills. He argues that if making science is a holistic activity, then it can only be though and learned the same way, and it should be, therefore, assessed accordingly. In this sense Gowin's heuristic 'V' is a way to the systematization of knowledge and to showing the coordination of what the student knows, thinks, decides and does. Our proposal for classroom work emphasizes the following logic: a) Formulation of a main question that is directly related to the research hypothesis, b) the hypothesis has to contain the variables of the study, c) showing the data (as objective systems), d) interpreting data to answer the question and, finally e) systematizing a conclusion that answers the question and the hypothesis using the data gathered. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.