Development and application of a physics modeling competence assessment tool for junior middle school students based on the new curriculum standard

Modeling as an important way of scientific thinking is one of the key literacies of the Compulsory Physics Curriculum Standards(2022)Edition. An assessment framework was constructed based on the structure of scientific modeling competence and related assessment theories, and model construction and use, model comparison, revision and calibration, metacognitive knowledge of the modeling process and Meta-modeling knowledge were identified as the components of physics modeling competence. Based on the framework, an assessment tool was developed, empirically tested on 373 junior high school students, and the quality of the tool was examined and data analyzed using the Rasch model. The study shows that the assessment tool has good reliability and validity. The assessment results show that the physics modeling ability of junior high school students is generally in the lower middle level, there is no significant difference between boys and girls in physics modeling ability, and there is a significant difference between the physics modeling ability of students at different academic levels.