Assessing learning about bioethical issues: a case study
Lindsey Conner
Christchurch College of Education
P. O. Box 31 065
Christchurch 8030
New Zealand
lindsey.conner@cce.ac.nz
Keywords: assessment, ethical issues, social issues, evaluation.
Abstract
A case study of a final year high school biology class in New Zealand is used to
illustrate how the New Zealand assessment system allows students to demonstrate
the knowledge, attributes and skills considered to be important in learning about
bioethical issues. The New Zealand achievement standard system is briefly
described. In this case, students were assessed by an essay (500 words) in an
external exam. Self and peer assessment activities as well as a range of selfmonitoring strategies were used to help students to improve their practice essays.
Some of the problems highlighted in this study indicate that teachers need to
emphasise what is required of students in more detail and they need to provide
multiple opportunities for students to develop the skills of self-questioning,
independent inquiry, critical thinking and essay writing.
1
Learning about bioethical issues
In New Zealand, there has been a focus on learning about bioethical issues in
formal schooling for the last 15 years because of the economic importance and
implications of the use of biotechnologies in our society. The New Zealand
Government’s Biotechnology Strategy (Ministry of Research in Science and
Technology, 2005) indicates that existing and future biotechnologies include:
health and wellbeing, primary production, industry and environment, and security
and defence. This strategy document also recognises that there is a need to raise
issues with society, to build understanding of diverse perspectives, and for our
people to have regard for ethical and cultural concerns. One of the perceived ways
of doing this is educating people through the formal school system. Therefore in
New Zealand bioethical issues are included in both the science and technology
curriculums (Conner, 2000). The types of bioethical issues discussed in New
Zealand schools includes health treatments and associated technologies (including
genetic screening and reproductive technologies), genetic modification of primary
products, future foods, industry and conservation, and uses for security and
defence.
Considering the implications of the above imperative, teachers have had to
consider what aspects they would expect students to demonstrate as a result of
learning about bioethical issues and how we would assess these aspects. Jarvis,
Hickford and Conner (1998) give some suggestions in that they recommend that
education about bioethical issues should allow students to gain:
1. an appreciation that there are areas of science and technology which
involve ethical problems and issues of social responsibility;
2
2. an appreciation that a sound knowledge and understanding of facts and
principles are the basis of understanding these issues;
3. an appreciation that solutions to ethical problems are culturally
determined;
4. skills in analyzing situations involving ethical conflicts and in evaluating
the benefits and disadvantages arising from alternative decisions;
5. the ability to find a range of solutions and recommend one that could be
tolerated by the greatest number of people involved and
6. an understanding of how science and technology policy are determined in
a democratic society and the role of the individual in influencing policy.
In order to assess whether students have demonstrated these aspects, the
assessment tasks have had to be flexible enough to accommodate a range of
contexts, relatively open-ended enough to allow choice, knowledge and opinion to
be expressed, but at the same time sufficiently prescriptive enough so that both
students and teachers can grapple with what is expected. The following section
describes how the New Zealand achievement standard has allowed both a degree
of flexibility and yet indicates specific criteria for levels of achievement.
The New Zealand Achievement Standard System
In 1991, the New Zealand Qualification Authority developed a single
qualifications framework known as the National Qualification Framework (NQF)
that included both academic and vocational qualifications. It is standards based
and was developed in response to the recognition that the previous normreferenced based assessment system was not providing sufficient information
about specific knowledge and skills that learners had obtained (Lennox, 1995;
Strachan, 2001).
3
In this system, the qualifications cover a diverse range of ways or methods of
assessing as well as examinations. Assessment against standards leads to the
National Certificate in Educational Achievement and specific criteria detailed for
each standard were seen to align assessment methods with intended learning.
Approximately half of the available standards in any subject domain are assessed
through external examinations. Other standards allow students to demonstrate
evidence of meeting the criteria through completing learning activities during
class time where samples of work could be collected for formal assessment. This
type of assessment is considered to be more authentic and more closely aligns the
desired learning outcomes to assessment tasks. The intention was that students
could have multiple opportunities to demonstrate their competencies of the
standards.
In the New Zealand system, achievement standards describe what students can do
using precise criteria and judge student’s performance at four levels (not achieved,
achievement, achievement with merit, and achievement with excellence). These
achievement levels broadly correspond to progressively higher levels of thinking,
such as those described in various classifications such as Bloom’s taxonomy
(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Bloom et al, 1956). A student would be expected
to “describe” at the achievement level, “explain” at the merit level and “discuss”,
“apply” or “evaluate” at the excellence level. These differentiated levels are
intended to give students, parents, tertiary institutions and employers a
comprehensive account of students’ knowledge and skills (NZQA, 2001).
Approximately half of the achievement standards are internally assessed by
4
teachers. An example of the internally assessed achievement standard that targets
bioethical issues in the final year of schooling, is given in Appendix 1. Although
the National Qualifications Authority have developed a range of exemplar
assessment tasks that schools can use for internal assessment, teachers are
encouraged to design their own assessment tasks that allow students to
demonstrate the criteria of the standard. This means there is a lot of flexibility
both in terms of choice of content that is assessed and the form (or mode) in
which it is assessed (for example, through presentations in class, assignment
work, essays, etc.).
Problems related to assessing social and ethical issues
Social and ethical issues are intrinsically laden with multiple perspectives, values
beliefs and attitudes. This poses problems for teachers who have found it difficult
to develop assessment tasks so that they allow students to demonstrate nuances,
judgement, and weighing of alternatives rather than fixed answers. One of the
problems is that the assessment techniques themselves depend on judgement and
are open to alternative interpretations. Assessment task design therefore, needs to
be open-ended enough to allow students opportunities to demonstrate analysis,
synthesis evaluation and critical awareness of the ambiguous and contextual
nature of the issues (Conner, 2003).
In designing assessment tasks, teachers and examiners also need to be aware of
what O’Loughlin (1992) asks, “Whose knowledge is privileged in the
assessment?” This is even more crucial when the knowledge may be
controversial, biased or contextual. In other words, what knowledge do we expect
to be demonstrated?
5
These questions become even more important given that Biggs and Moore (1993)
indicate that students tend to orient their approaches to learning and what they
focus on, according to what is assessed, and how it is assessed. Traditionally
students have been accustomed to being assessed on content knowledge. The new
forms of assessment though require students to demonstrate multiple points of
view and the problematic nature of their topic. The relative weighting given to
content versus the social and ethical issues components in assessment tasks is
likely to influence students’ perceptions of what is important (Aikenhead, 2000)
and may drive what is taught. For example if the scientific content is given a
higher weighting, students and teachers will focus on this, rather than the social
and ethical issues.
Other difficulties and dilemmas surrounding the teaching, learning and assessment
in these contexts stem from a lack of clarity about what we expect students to
demonstrate in terms of critical thinking or reasoned arguments. In the
achievement standards system, criteria for different levels of achievement are
determined by an achievement standard outline (Appendix 1). Both students and
teachers can access examples of expected answers on the Ministry of Education’s
web site (NZQA, 2006). This is especially important for giving teachers
guidelines about what is expected in terms of critical thinking and for their
judgements for each level of achievement.
In New Zealand, the formal assessment of controversial issues is quite open, in
that students can choose topics and teachers then need to decide how well students
have met the criteria. There is no prescribed content that students must convey but
rather they must demonstrate the skills of evaluation and discussion of multiple
perspectives (Appendix 1). Evaluation requires the student to:
6
 comment on sources and information, considering ideas such as
validity (date, peer reviewed, scientific acceptance), bias (attitudes,
values, beliefs), weighing up how science ideas are used by
different groups, own opinions, attitudes and beliefs
 provide a justified position that supports or opposes aspects of the
issue or an implication of the issue. Justified means to demonstrate,
with supporting evidence, why the position has been chosen.
Discussion requires the student to show understanding by linking biological
ideas. It may involve students in justifying, relating, evaluating, comparing and
contrasting, and analysing ideas.
The mode of assessment (for example, formative task, test, presentation, essay) is
also likely to influence the importance placed on the issues. There is a need to
have some indication of student thinking, especially in terms of how students
perceive the issues. Aikenhead (1988) conducted a study that compared different
ways of assessing students’ understanding in STS (Science, Technology and
Society) contexts. He found that standardized instruments such as Lickert-type
responses and multiple choice tests showed a high level of ambiguity when
compared with students’ views expressed in interviews. When students were
asked to write paragraphs to explain their reasons for their answers, he discovered
that students interpreted the questions differently to the teachers’ intentions
(Aikenhead, 1988). Another problem with using paragraph writing to assess and
evaluate student learning was that students often did not have sufficient writing
skills or they found it difficult to clearly record and give thorough written
accounts of their views. This suggests that differences between what students
write and what they say or have discussed in class, may either be a result of their
7
lack of ability to develop representations that allow them to recall important
aspects or that their limitations in writing (composing) skills prevented them from
writing about their thinking. Aikenhead (1988) cites a similar study by Yarroch in
which students tended to understate, and sometimes not state, what they knew.
Teachers in New Zealand are now questioning how they can utilise productive
pedagogies that incorporate on-going continual assessment and feedback so that
students increase their understandings and abilities (Lingard & Mills, 2002),
rather than surveys or tests to assess students thinking. This can be done in a
multitude of ways, particularly through classroom activities that address issues
clarification, issues analysis and/or inquiry (Conner, 2001). A range of activities
for such purposes have been published by Jarvis, Hickford and Conner (1998) and
Macer (2006). The following section describes a case study that illustrates how a
range of activities were used to develop students’ critical thinking about bioethics
and about their own learning and the associated assessment.
A case study of a biology class in New Zealand
Teaching and learning about the social and ethical issues associated with a
contemporary issue has been assessed nationally in New Zealand for over 15
years. The relevant curriculum achievement objective states that students will
“investigate contemporary biological issues and make informed judgements on
any social, ethical, or environmental implications” (Ministry of Education, 1994,
p. 28). Assessment has therefore focused on whether students can demonstrate
critical thinking and if they can demonstrate informed decision-making. This case
study was conducted prior to the introduction of achievement standards. Students
were required to write an essay of about 500 words to demonstrate their
8
knowledge and understanding of the issues, as well as give their opinions, as part
of the three hour national University Bursaries examination. The section of the
exam that focussed on the biological, social and ethical issues of a contemporary
topic, was worth 20% of the overall examination. This was high stakes external
assessment, yet attempted to assess this area using a complex task; writing an
essay.
Students tended to view this section as one that could allow them to gain easy
marks because they could predict the exam question. This assumption was often
false because in order to gain high marks, students needed to research their issue
extensively, weigh up different perspectives and write this coherently into an
essay format. The curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1994, pp. 37-47) expects
students to ask a series of related questions of themselves, their group, and
resource people, and refine these questions. Students are also expected to locate
and process relevant information using a variety of sources and to evaluate the
quality of information gathered and its degree of relevance. Then, they have to
reconstruct their findings and personal opinions in a cohesive way into an essay to
demonstrate the understanding about the biological implications and the multiple
social and ethical issues. Difficulties arise if students do not have well-developed
investigative skills or do not have the literacy skills to construct high quality
essays.
In previous years as a teacher of biology, I had been frustrated about the lack of
students’ awareness of the issues and the seeming lack of ability of many students
to purposefully research information, apply their understanding and use text
organisation structures to write more effective essays. Therefore, together with a
9
teacher from an inner city school, I designed an intervention to try to address these
two issues.
A wide range of teaching activities were used to expose the ambiguous and
uncertain nature of the bioethical issues associated with cancer. These drew on
resources that have been developed for schools to support teaching and learning
about social and ethical issues in various contexts (Lemin, Potts, & Welsford,
1994; Gordon & Nicholas, 1996; Jarvis, Hickford & Conner, 1998), as well as
cotemporary research articles from the Cancer Society, Scientific American and
New Scientist. Small group discussions, scenarios, case studies, and videos were
used as stimulus activities for getting students to clarify and analyse their values.
Students were required to use inquiry to investigate the biological, social and
ethical aspects of cancer using classroom activities and independent research.
These included, detection methods; the choices of who to treat and how to treat
cancer patients; the costs of prevention and treatments; advantages and
disadvantages of a range of treatments; genetic screening; euthanasia; and the
personal, family and social implications of all of the above.
A constructivist approach was implemented to access prior content and procedural
knowledge in various ways so that students could reflect of what they needed to
know and what they needed to do and the teacher could give feedback on what
they had done well and feed-forward on what they needed to do to improve.
Independent learning skills were developed through activities that promoted
metacognition (Conner, 2003; Conner & Gunstone, 2004). These were assisted
through prompting and questioning by the teacher, through self and peer
assessment activities and various artefacts such as a journal bookmark and an
essay checklist.
10
Self and peer assessment
Black and William (1998) have indicated that strong assessment practices include:

positive feedback

helping students to develop short-term goals (or learning intentions)

clarifying why aspects of learning are worthwhile

using questions that encourage inferential and deductive reasoning

using prompts to help students generate their own questions (about content
and the processes of learning). (Italics are added)
Further, students may achieve better when they are more critically involved in
their own learning (Markwick, Jackson & Hull, 2003). In this intervention,
students were expected to assess their own progress through monitoring their
inquiry processes and evaluating their essay quality (content and structure). They
were also expected to reflect on their own processes for learning (strategies). Such
evaluation included students thinking about the ways they planned, monitored,
checked, questioned, reflected, assessed and reviewed their work (Conner &
Gunstone, 2004). These processes have also been implicated for the promotion of
critical thinking in classrooms by Resnick (1987) and for the development of the
key competencies for all learners New Zealand (Ministry of Education, 2005).
Students also marked one of their peer’s essays.
During this study, several issues relating to self and peer assessment became
apparent. These centred round the students’ knowledge of content and knowledge
of processes for learning. Students needed to identify and question their own ideas
and beliefs before they could make decisions about what should be included in
their essays. That is, they needed to analyse (evaluate) their ideas in some way,
based on comparisons with other ideas from the literature or from classroom
11
activities. Some students were able to do this very well. Those students who
actively used self-questioning produced higher quality essays (Conner&
Gunstone, 2004). The teacher often gave the class hints and modelled questioning
protocols or aspects for them to consider. However deciding how much guidance
to give to support students was a dilemma for this teacher. This was because he
realised that too little guidance may have prevented some students from achieving
well, whereas too much guidance may have perpetuated a reliance on the teacher
to instigate learning processes. In this case the teacher wanted to students to
develop self-regulating learning habits so that they might become more
independent learners and thinkers (Conner, 2004).
The students and the teacher considered that peer assessment and peer feedback
was very useful (Conner, 2002). Through peer evaluation of a classmate’s essay,
by using a marking schedule that had been negotiated between the students and
the teacher, some students gained insights about what content could be included
and possible structures for improving their own essays. In other words, the peer
assessment assisted self-assessment. There was some concern about a perceived
lack of fairness in the peer assessment. Not knowing exactly what was required in
terms of content or argument, (because there was no one right way of explaining
about social and ethical issues), was identified as a problem in assigning marks by
the students. One student commented that he did not have sufficient knowledge
about what could be included in the essays to be able to assess someone else’s
essay and that “you would not want to be mean to your friends.”
The use of essay as an assessment task
At the time of this case study, students were assessed by an essay in a national
examination. This meant that there were no immediate consequences for poor
12
performance or non-completion of their draft essays that they wrote during class
time. Now, this section of the curriculum is assessed by teachers, as an internally
assessed achievement standard (Appendix 1) and therefore the work produced in
class now has high stakes attached to it.
The essay format enabled students to have choices about the content they included
(what types of cancer and associated issues) and how they structured their writing.
However, this mode not only assessed students’ ability to identify, analyse and
evaluate bioethical issues, but also their ability to transform this knowledge
meaningfully into an essay structure. Their success depended on how well they
conducted the inquiry/research process to gather information and on their
knowledge about writing essays and the application of this knowledge. Some
students gained low marks because of their inability to write logically and
coherently. The students who scored low marks still needed more assistance,
perhaps just more practice at structuring written text. The advantages of planning
or of handing work in, so that students could gain feedback on their progress
could have been emphasised more, particularly the pre-write activity. Since only 7
students handed in a pre-write paragraph, it seems that the usefulness of a prewrite for monitoring progress was not immediately obvious to many students.
Many students only included a limited range of issues in their essays (Conner &
Gunstone, 2004). This is disappointing considering the apparent wide exposure to
the issues in classroom discussions and other activities. As Aikenhead (2000) has
noted, students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the importance of the social and
ethical aspects of issues are linked to the degree to which they are given real
importance in the assessment. In the formative marking of the essay by students
and teachers, a discussion of the issues was worth 10 marks out of a possible 40.
13
More emphasis could have been placed on the importance of discussing a range of
issues in the essays. Also, students could have been reminded to use the essaymarking schedule as a guide and for checking their essays more often to help them
evaluate what was important and how their essay met the requirements.
Some students had difficulties in developing and evaluating their own and other
students’ essays. These included:

Asking themselves questions that required little effort to answer,
which down graded the effectiveness of self-questioning.

Asking questions related to personal interest, which was motivating
and essential in their consideration of the bioethical issues, but
these detracted from a focus on the scientific ideas or on the
evaluative aspects of the issues that they needed to demonstrate.

Finding relevant information or discriminating between relevant
and irrelevant information during the inquiry process.

Judging their understanding of the text as complete, consistent and
compatible with their prior knowledge when in fact it was
imprecise or inaccurate.

Judging the writing as being adequate, even though it lacked
sufficient content, was not substantiated with reason nor sufficient
examples.

Misinterpreting what they had to demonstrate
14
Since this section of the curriculum is now internally assessed by teachers, schools
can chose from a range of modes, rather than being restricted to an essay in an
examination.
Implications for teaching
When evaluative processes need to be applied and demonstrated as part of
assessment, such as demonstrating an understanding of bioethical issues and being
able to critically discuss them from multiple perspectives, teachers need to clarify
with students quite precisely what is expected. Once teachers are clear about this,
they then need to guide students through the appropriate learning processes. In
particular, it seems important that teachers help students to develop skills in selfquestioning (Bakaponos & White, 1990). If students lack knowledge of how to
identify, analyse and critically discuss the ambiguous and contextual nature of the
issues, they can hardly be expected to be reflective on utilising this knowledge to
their own advantage by choosing or developing learning strategies to help them
succeed (National Research Council, 1999). Similarly, if students are uncertain
about the criteria on which their work is to be assessed, they are unlikely to align
their learning practices with what needs to be demonstrated in the assessment
(Lingard & Mills, 2003). Teachers need to model how to evaluate ideas, weigh up
evidence, detect bias and they should give multiple examples of the sort of
reasoning required. Some students in the class studied, were not self-starting in
terms of evaluating their own and others’ ideas, even though they were in the final
year of high school. Teachers should not assume that students have developed
discriminatory skills, but should explicitly check whether students use higherorder thinking about content and the processes of learning.
15
If assessment practices are to be used to inform learning, then it is important that
students get appropriate feedback on their progress (Dixon & Williams, 2003).
Students need to get feedback in order to monitor and plan future activities and
they need assistance with developing schemas and extend these for later use in
reasoning or justifying particular points of view (Black, 2003). This can be
through peer assessment or the teacher. In this study students reported that to
enable them to give effective feedback to each other, they needed to know what
should be demonstrated in terms of the content and how to communicate the
critical, contextual nature of the issues in more detail.
References
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about STS topics, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 25 (8), 607-629.
Aikenhead, G. S. (2000) STS science in Canada: from policy to student
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society: a sourcebook on research and practice (New York, Kluwer
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and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of Educational Objectives (New
York, Longman).
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students to ask questions. Set, research information for teachers (1)11, 1-6.
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Prentice Hall.
Black, P. (2003) Testing, testing: listening to the past and looking to the future,
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Conner, L (2000) Societal issues: recommendations for teaching in science and
technology, Pacific Asian Education, 12(1), 19-30.
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issues related to biotechnology, Eric Document 440 876.
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Conner, L. (2002) Learning about social and ethical issues in a biology class.
PhD thesis (Melbourne, Australia, Monash University).
Conner, L. (2003) The importance of developing critical thinking in issues
education, New Zealand Biotechnology Association Journal, 56, 58-71.
Conner, L. (2004) Teaching values through the process of facilitation, Pacific
Asian Education, 16(2), 65-80.
Conner, L. & Gunstone, R. (2004) Conscious knowledge of learning: accessing
learning strategies in a final year high school biology class, Int. J. Sci. Educ, 26,
1-17.
Dixon, H. & Williams, R. (2003) Formative assessment and the professional
development of teachers. Are we focussing on what is important? Set, research
information for teachers, (2), 35-39.
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discussion (Dunedin, Bioethics Research Centre, University of Otago).
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Food).
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classroom teachers (Hawthorn, Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd).
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evidence? (New Zealand Council for Educational Research Conference
Proceedings, 2002. Wellington, NZCER), 63-82.
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Eubios Ethics Institute), http://www.unescobkk.org/index.php?id=2508 (accessed
30 June, 2006).
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marking and interview assessment techniques, School Science Review, 85(311),
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school, (Washington, DC, National Academy Press).
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Biblographic note
Dr Lindsey Conner is a Principal Lecturer at the Christchurch College of
education, Christchurch, New Zealand. She has been a national examiner and has
contributed to the development of the National Qualifications assessment system
now well in place in the New Zealand education system.
18
Appendix 1
Achievement Standard
Subject Reference
Title
Biology 3.2
Research a contemporary biological issue
3
Credits
Assessment
3
Level
Science
Subfield
Biology
Domain
1 November 2005
Registration date
Date version published
Internal
1 November 2005
This achievement standard involves researching a contemporary biological issue.
Achievement Criteria
Achievement
 Research information to
describe a contemporary
biological issue.
Achievement with Merit
Achievement with Excellence

Integrate
researched information to
explain a contemporary
biological issue.

Integrate and
evaluate researched information
to discuss a contemporary
biological issue.
Explanatory Notes
1
This achievement standard is derived from Biology in the New Zealand
Curriculum, Learning Media, Ministry of Education, 1994, p. 28, achievement objective
8.3 (a).
2
In research, the student collects and interprets information from mainly
secondary sources. Use of primary sources is acceptable. The research will be conducted
with teacher guidance. This means the teacher is supporting the student throughout the
research but the whole process will be student driven. The student is to select an issue,
either from a list provided by the teacher or from the student’s own research. The teacher
guidance gives general information in the form of broad questions, resource suggestions, or
possible new directions.
3
An issue is one for which people hold different opinions or viewpoints.
4

For achievement, students are expected to describe:
biological concepts and processes relating to the issue
implications of the issue, which can be biological, social, ethical,
economic or environmental
differing opinions or viewpoints.

5
Students are required to support their description, explanation or discussion
with referenced information. This means that references to information sources are
included within the text of the report, with full details given in a reference list.
6
Terms
19
Describe requires the student to define, use annotated diagrams, give
characteristics of, or an account of.
Integrate means to bring together and organise relevant information and opinions
from a range of sources.
Explain requires the student to provide a reason as to how or why something
occurs.
Evaluate requires the student to:
comment on sources and information, considering ideas such as validity (date,
peer reviewed, scientific acceptance), bias (attitudes, values, beliefs), weighing up
how science ideas are used by different groups, own opinions, attitudes and
beliefs provide a justified position that supports or opposes aspects of the issue or
an implication of the issue.
Justified means to demonstrate, with supporting evidence, why the position has
been chosen.
Discuss requires the student to show understanding by linking biological ideas. It
may involve students in justifying, relating, evaluating, comparing and
contrasting, and analysing.
Quality Assurance
1
Providers and Industry Training Organisations must be accredited by the
Qualifications Authority before they can register credits from assessment against
achievement standards.
2
Accredited providers and Industry Training Organisations assessing against
achievement standards must engage with the moderation system that applies to those
achievement standards.
Accreditation and Moderation Action Plan (AMAP) reference
Achievement Standard
0226
Biology 3.2
Subject Reference
Research a contemporary biological issue
Title
3
3
Level
Credits
Assessment
Science
Subfield
Biology
Domain
1 November 2005
Registration date
Date version published
Internal
1 November 2005
This achievement standard involves researching a contemporary biological issue.
Achievement Criteria
Achievement
Achievement with Merit
Achievement with Excellence
 Research information to
 Integrate researched
 Integrate and evaluate
describe a contemporary biological information
issue.
to explain a contemporary
researched information to discuss a
biological issue.
contemporary biological issue.
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Explanatory Notes
7
This achievement standard is derived from Biology in the New Zealand
Curriculum, Learning Media, Ministry of Education, 1994, p. 28, achievement objective
8.3 (a).
8
In research, the student collects and interprets information from mainly
secondary sources. Use of primary sources is acceptable. The research will be conducted
with teacher guidance. This means the teacher is supporting the student throughout the
research but the whole process will be student driven. The student is to select an issue,
either from a list provided by the teacher or from the student’s own research. The teacher
guidance gives general information in the form of broad questions, resource suggestions, or
possible new directions.
9
An issue is one for which people hold different opinions or viewpoints.
10


For achievement, students are expected to describe:
biological concepts and processes relating to the issue
implications of the issue, which can be biological, social, ethical,
economic or environmental
differing opinions or viewpoints.

11 Students are required to support their description, explanation or discussion
with referenced information. This means that references to information sources are
included within the text of the report, with full details given in a reference list.
12 Terms
Describe requires the student to define, use annotated diagrams, give
characteristics of, or an account of.
Integrate means to bring together and organise relevant information and opinions
from a range of sources.
Explain requires the student to provide a reason as to how or why something
occurs.
Evaluate requires the student to:

comment on sources and information, considering ideas such as
validity (date, peer reviewed, scientific acceptance), bias (attitudes, values,
beliefs), weighing up how science ideas are used by different groups, own
opinions, attitudes and beliefs

provide a justified position that supports or opposes aspects of the
issue or an implication of the issue. Justified means to demonstrate, with
supporting evidence, why the position has been chosen.
Discuss requires the student to show understanding by linking biological ideas. It
may involve students in justifying, relating, evaluating, comparing and
contrasting, and analysing.
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Quality Assurance
3
Providers and Industry Training Organisations must be accredited by the
Qualifications Authority before they can register credits from assessment against
achievement standards.
4
Accredited providers and Industry Training Organisations assessing against
achievement standards must engage with the moderation system that applies to those
achievement standards.
Accreditation and Moderation Action Plan (AMAP) reference
0226
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