scientific reasoning act i assignment submission

9 ACT Science Practice Questions with Explanations

ACT Science questions are a little like olives; either you love them or you hate them. Yes, skeptical readers, there are some students out there who love the ACT Science test . But no matter where you fall on this love/hate spectrum, you absolutely can learn to do better on it—with ACT Science practice! Time to break out those ACT Science practice tests and ACT questions—because the ACT Science section is unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

Before we get to the practice questions , take a look at the top strategies that will help you get cozier with the ACT Science test and be fully prepared for it.  

Table of Contents

Act science practice tips, act science practice passages and questions, take practice act science tests.

The ACT Science test is unique. Unlike the English or Math sections, you can’t do effective preparation for it simply by studying, say, grammar rules or geometry formulas. Heck, you can’t even really prepare for it by studying science . This sounds rather ironic, but it is true. The ACT Science test is far more a test of scientific reasoning and data analysis than a test of science content or facts you’ve learned in your high school science classes.

So the most effective preparation for the ACT is to do lots of ACT Science questions . We have passages for you to practice with on Magoosh . You can also find five full-length tests in The Real ACT Prep Guide and official practice passages and a full-length test for free on the ACT Student website.

Once you develop a familiarity with the ACT Science test, it is crucial that you practice doing tests under timed conditions. There are generally 6 passages on the Science test and a 35-minute time limit, meaning you have a little less than 6 minutes per passage.

Some passages will take you more or less time than others, but time yourself to see if you are able to work at this approximate pace. If you are not, don’t get discouraged; this may just mean you need to focus on doing only 5 of the passages, or even 4, to get your best ACT score. But it’s really important that you figure this out in practice and not on the real thing.  

Read Scientific Writing

The more you read about science, the more comfortable you will be with the lingo, terminology, and strange units on the ACT Science test. The Public Library of Science has some good free sources for you to read, but be forewarned that these articles are written for scientists and are more complex than what you will see on the ACT. Therefore, I only recommend this for students who are VERY serious about their ACT Science score.

If you aren’t ready to get that intense about your ACT Science study, you can devote a little more attention to your school’s science textbooks and lab experiments. Focus particularly on understanding the hypothesis, the control, the variables, and the results of the experiments you encounter.  

Review Fundamental Scientific Concepts

Every ACT Science test will have a few questions that require you to bring in outside scientific knowledge. There won’t be many of these, and any outside knowledge required will be on a pretty basic level. The ACT doesn’t provide a list of what could be tested, but here’s a sense of what you will encounter based on subject area:

• Passages dealing with biology may involve body systems, cellular biology, photosynthesis, ecosystems, evolution, and genetics.
• Passages dealing with chemistry may feature some of these concepts: properties of matter, acids and bases, kinetics and equilibria, thermochemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, and nuclear chemistry.
• Passages dealing with chemistry cover mechanics (the behavior of physical bodies when subject to forces), thermodynamics (the study of the transfer of heat between materials), electromagnetism (the study of the interaction of electric currents and magnetic fields), fluids and solids (substances with no fixed shape and fixed shape, respectively), and optics (study of the behavior of light and radiation).
• Passages dealing with the physical sciences (or earth and space science) include topics in geology, astronomy, and meteorology.

You can also check out our free ACT Flashcard App , which contains definitions and examples for all the terms we suggest you know for the ACT Science test.  

Ready to apply what you’ve learned? Great! Here are sample ACT Science questions from all three areas of the Science section: Interpretation of Data, Scientific Investigation, and Models/Experiments. (They’re organized by question type, but note that on test day, these will all be mixed together.) Try one or two in areas of your strengths and weaknesses, or do them all at once–think of them as an ACT practice test in Science!

We’ve provided clickable radio buttons for you to select your answer as you go through these ACT Science practice questions. This way, you can keep track of your answers and check your work at the end. However, please note that there’s no option to submit them!

ACT Science Practice: Interpretation of Data

In these ACT Science questions, you’ll need to manipulate and analyze scientific data presented in tables, graphs, and diagrams. You’ll find them in Data Representation and Research Summaries passages; you’ll rarely, if ever, see them in Conflicting Viewpoints passages, which already have enough information to process!

Question 1: Easy

Subject Area : Biology

Malaria is an infectious disease that kills more than 600,000 people every year. Several species of the genus Plasmodium cause malaria, with two of the most common being Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax. Though both species cause a very similar illness, P. falciparum malaria is more likely to result in fatalities than P. vivax malaria, while P. vivax malaria is more likely to recur — to return after a period of time during which the patient is healthy and has no parasites present in the blood.

The two species of malaria parasites respond differently to antimalarial medications, but in many areas where malaria is common, testing to determine what type of malaria a patient has is not widely available. Therefore malaria treatments are often tested against both species of the parasite, and first-line malaria treatments in these regions ideally should be effective against both parasites.

Experiment 1

For many years, public health professionals in Papua New Guinea have recommended a treatment regimen, Drug Combination A, as a first-line malaria treatment. Recently a new treatment regimen, Drug Combination B, has been proposed as a potential replacement for Combination A, and a study was conducted to compare their effectiveness.

Children entering a local health clinic with malaria symptoms were tested to determine which Plasmodium species they carried. The patients were then randomly assigned Drug Combination A or Drug Combination B, and their blood was tested periodically for the presence of parasites.

Experiment 2

On rare occasions, patients have severe allergic reactions to a compound that is found in both Drug Combination A and Drug Combination B. In these cases, a second-line treatment must be used. A second study was conducted to determine which of several drug combinations would be the best second-line drug to recommend for use in Papua New Guinea. Table 1 shows the treatment response to the second-line drug combinations.

According to Figure 1, the percentage of P. falciparum patients with parasites remaining in their blood on day 14 was approximately:

1% for patients treated with Drug Combination A, 12% for patients treated with Drug Combination B. 12% for patients treated with Drug Combination A, 1% for patients treated with Drug Combination B. 7% for patients treated with Drug Combination A, 14% for patients treated with Drug Combination B. 0% for both drug combinations.  

Question 2: Medium

Subject Area : Physics

Loudness perception by the human ear varies as a function of intensity and frequency of the sound source. Intensity is a measure of the amount of energy from a source that hits the area that absorbs the sound. The subjective loudness level is a measure of how loud a sound feels to the human ear.

According to the figure, which of the following is closest to the lowest intensity that a frequency of 100 Hz can be heard by a human being?

0 dB 20 dB 40 dB 60 dB  

Question 3: Hard

Subject Area: Chemistry

A covalent bond occurs when the nuclei of atoms share electrons, resulting in a stable balance of attractive and repulsive electrostatic forces. The potential energy of any system of two atoms capable of forming a covalent bond depends on the distance between the atoms. The more negative the potential energy, the greater the attractive force between the atoms.

Bond energy is the amount of energy released when a bond is formed, which is equivalent to the absolute value of the potential energy of two atoms in a covalent bond. Bonds of higher energies are more stable than bonds of lower energies. Bond length is the average distance between the nuclei of atoms in a covalent bond. Bond order is the number of electron pairs shared between the two atoms. For diatomic molecules, bond energy is equivalent to the dissociation energy , which is the amount of energy required to pull apart the atoms in a diatomic molecule.

Figure 1 shows the potential energy curve for a system of two hydrogen atoms. Table 1 presents bond lengths and energies for covalent bonds of varying orders. Table 2 presents the bond length and dissociation energies for a number of diatomic molecules.

Based on information in the passage and Figure 1, as the distance between two hydrogen atoms decreases, the attractive force between the atoms:

increases only. decreases only. increases, then decreases. decreases, then increases.  

ACT Science Practice: Scientific Investigation

In these ACT Science questions, you’ll need to understand experimental tools, procedures, and design. This involves things like identifying variables and controls, as well as comparing, extending, and modifying experiments. You’ll find them in Data Representation and Research Summaries passages. Sometimes, you may also see them in Conflicting Viewpoints passages, particularly regarding experiment design and significance.

Question 4: Easy

Subject Area: Physical Sciences

The Big Bang theory states that the universe exploded from a single point known as a singularity and has expanded over the course of 13.8 billion years. Three scientists provide different explanations for the observed expansion rate of the universe.

Scientist 1

The universe is expanding at an increasing rate. Galaxies move away from one another as the universe expands. The light they emit is stretched by the expansion as it travels through an expanding space. The result is a shift towards the red end of the color spectrum, known as the galactic redshift. The further away from the earth a galaxy is, the greater the redshift.

Supernovae are explosions caused when massive stars collapse under their own gravity. Type 1a supernovae always release light with the same amount of intensity, which makes them useful for measuring cosmic distances because intensity is lost as their light travels through an expanding space. Comparing the color of light measured when it reaches Earth with the color at the time of the supernova explosion gives the amount of redshift and thus the distance. Distances determined by observing the redshift of type 1a supernovae confirm that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. To explain this, cosmological models need some new kind of accelerating energy—a dark energy that accelerates the expansion of the universe.

Scientist 2

The universe is not expanding at all. In our own galaxy, distant stars appear fainter and smaller, but their surface brightnesses remain constant. In contrast, the Big Bang theory tells us that, in an expanding universe, surface brightness decreases with distance. Therefore, the most distant galaxies should have much dimmer surface brightnesses than similar nearby galaxies.

But this is not supported by observations. Contrary to the predictions of the Big Bang theory, the surface brightnesses of distant galaxies are identical to nearby ones. Supernovae data confirm that galaxy distance is proportional to the redshift at all distances. The predictions of this simple formula do not need to include complex corrections for hypothetical dark matter and dark energy. The redshift of light over increasing distance must be caused by another phenomenon, one that causes the intensity of light itself to decrease as it travels through space.

Scientist 3

Which scientist would be most likely to predict that the expansion of the universe will be faster in the future than it is today?

Scientist 1 Scientist 2 Scientist 3 None of the scientists  

Question 5: Medium

Subject Area: Biology

One of the most common ways bacteria are grown in a lab is called batch culture. In batch culture, bacteria are added to a fixed amount of liquid growth media, a solution that contains nutrients for bacterial growth and allowed to grow under defined environmental conditions.

Bacterial growth in batch culture follows a predictable pattern of four phases:

1. Lag phase: Immediately after they are added to a new media bacteria must adjust their metabolism to the new environment before they begin growing and dividing. The number of bacteria in the culture does not change during this phase.

2. Log phase: Bacteria actively grow and divide, and the number of bacteria in the culture grows exponentially.

3. Stationary phase: When an essential nutrient in the media is depleted, growth slows substantially, such that growth rate in the culture becomes equal to death rate. The number of bacteria in the culture is unchanged.

4. Death phase: When culture conditions can no longer sustain any growth, bacteria die off exponentially.

Phases 2-4 will happen in every batch culture, given enough time. However, it is possible for no lag phase to be observed if little or no adjustment of metabolism is needed for the bacteria to begin reproducing in their new environment.

The following experiments was conducted to investigate the variables that affect bacterial growth in batch culture.

A batch culture of E. coli, a common bacterial species used for lab studies, was grown in a nutrient rich media called LB. When this culture reached log phase, 0.5 ml samples of the liquid media was removed and used to inoculate each of two 1L flasks. Each of these flasks contained a different type of liquid growth media. The new cultures were then allowed to grow at 37°C.

Growth of the cultures was monitored by taking periodic measurements of the optical density, or OD600, of the growth media. Optical density is a measurement of how easily light is able to pass through the media, and it is directly related to the concentration of living bacteria in the media. The resulting measurements are graphed in Figure 1.

Eight 1L flasks of minimal growth media were inoculated with bacteria: four with E.coli, and four with P. aeruginosa. The flasks were then incubated at 37°C under one of two conditions–either with, or without oxygen–and OD600 measurements were taken every hour to monitor growth.

After OD600 measurements stopped rising, the bacteria was separated from the media and weighed. These measurements were used to calculate growth yield, or the percentage of carbon source(s) in the growth media that was converted to biological material. Growth yield can be used to determine how efficiently the bacteria are able to use energy during a given set of growth conditions. The results of these calculations are shown in Table 1.

Growth media can be minimal or nutrient rich. Minimal media contains only the bare minimum necessary to support growth. Nutrient rich growth media contains a wide variety of compounds used in growth, such as amino acids and vitamins. Of the two types of media tested in Experiment 1, which is more likely to be a minimal media ?

Growth Media 2, because the long lag phase suggests the bacteria needed to turn on new metabolic pathways before they could begin dividing. Growth Media 2, because bacteria divide more quickly in minimal media. Growth Media 1, because the long lag phase suggests the bacteria needed to turn on new metabolic pathways before they could begin dividing. Growth Media 1, because bacteria divide more quickly in minimal media.  

Question 6: Hard

An E. coli culture in LB media growing in aerobic conditions was used to inoculate a new flask of LB media, which was then allowed to grow in anaerobic conditions. Given that E. coli uses different metabolic pathways for anaerobic conditions than it does for aerobic conditions, which of the following could be a growth curve for the the culture grown in anaerobic conditions?

ACT Science Practice: Models/Experiments

In these ACT Science questions (official known as “Evaluation of Models, Inference and Experimental Results”), you’ll need judge the validity of scientific information and formulate conclusions and predictions based on that information. You’ll find them all three types of passages: Data Representation, Research Summaries, and Conflicting Viewpoints.

Question 7: Easy

Subject Area: Physics

Electricity can be defined as the movement of electrons. Three of the most important concepts to understand in order to manipulate electricity to perform work are voltage, current, and resistance.

Voltage (measured in volts (V)) describes the amount of potential energy between two points on a circuit and is created by a difference in charge between those two points.

Current (measured in Amperes (A)) is the rate at which electrons flow through a circuit. A rate of one ampere is equivalent to 1 coulomb (a standard unit of charge) per second.

Resistance (measured in ohms (Ω)) is a measurement of how much a material resists the passage of current through the material. Materials with high resistance are referred to as insulators, while materials with low resistance are referred to as conductors.

Students in a physics course conducted several experiments to investigate the relationship between these three electrical properties.

To further study the property of resistance, students replaced the resistor in their circuit with coils of nickel wire of various lengths. Students used a variable power supply to adjust voltage until current was equal to 1 A. They then used the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance determined in Experiment 1 to calculate the resistance of the wire coil. Their results are graphed in Figure 2.

Experiment 3

Students repeated the procedure from Experiment 2 using 1 meter wire coils of a variety of other metals. Their results are given in Table 2.

Experiments 1-3 were completed in a classroom at 20°C. During the previous school year, the air conditioning was broken, so the same lab was completed at 28°C. It is known that conductivity of metals decreases as temperature increases. How would the higher classroom temperature have affected the voltage required to reach 1 A in Experiment 2?

The same amount of voltage would be required. More voltage would be required. Less voltage would be required. It is impossible to determine from the information provided.  

Question 8: Medium

Highly refined and purified mineral oil fractions are widely used for elaboration of consumer products such as foods and cosmetics. These mineral oils (MO) are called “white oils” and must meet very strict criteria in terms of residual levels of mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH). Reliable methods for detecting and monitoring the total MOAH levels in MO are needed to optimize the MOAH removal processes in white oil production.

A novel detector has been introduced, the Vacuum Ultraviolet (VUV) detector. This detector is used in combination with a gas chromatograph (GC) and measures the absorbance of gas phase compounds in the far UV wavelength range from 120 to 430 nm. At low wavelengths, all aliphatic and aromatic compounds are detected, and at higher wavelengths, only the aromatic and unsaturated compounds are detected. Given that the VUV spectra of compounds can differ significantly depending on the different functional groups present in the molecule, the detector is able to quantify MOAH levels in mineral oil without requiring prior separation from mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH), which makes the VUV an improvement upon earlier detection methods. Figure 1 shows VUV absorbance spectra of select aliphatic and aromatic compounds containing the typical structural elements of MOSH and MOAH compounds, respectively.

To determine the practical application limits of the newly proposed rapid VUV method for MOAH analysis, a series of starting samples and intermediates of white oil production of different origins and MOAH levels were analyzed and compared with data from two standard detection methods: Solid Phase Extraction (SPE) and Liquid Chromatography (LC). The VUV and LC methods were used in conjunction with Gas Chromatography. Figure 3 shows the MOAH content obtained from 18 different mineral oil samples.

Suppose the VUV spectrum of an unknown mineral oil is obtained and displays significant absorbance only above 200 nm. Based on the information provided, the unknown mineral oil would have contained:

both MOAH and MOSH compounds. only MOAH compounds. only MOSH compounds. neither MOAH nor MOSH compounds.  

Question 9: Hard

When the test tube registered 60°C, the students removed the test tube from the heated beaker and placed it in a second water bath that was 23°C (see Figure 1). They recorded the temperature of the sample every 20 seconds until the sample solidified. Results are shown in Figure 2.

When the lauric acid sample reached 38°C, the students removed it from the 30°C water bath and placed it back in the 60°C bath. They recorded the temperature every 20 seconds for 400 seconds. The results are shown in Figure 3.

Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the experiment?

It takes less time for lauric acid to cool from 50°C to 45°C than it takes for lauric acid to warm from 45°C to 50°C. It takes less time for lauric acid to warm from 40°C to 45°C than it takes for lauric acid to cool from 45°C to 40°C. Under constant temperature conditions, lauric acid cools more quickly between temperatures 55°C and 50°C than between 50°C and 45°C. Under constant temperature conditions, lauric acid cools more quickly between temperatures 50°C and 45°C than between 45°C and 40°C.  

ACT Science Practice Questions: An Important Takeaway

How did you do on these practice ACT Science questions? If you’re struggling with a particular problem, take a look at the video explanation (make sure to scroll down to see the video). Think about which tip from the above list might apply. Then, work on similar problems in the same category so you can ensure you improve your score as much as possible!

See what we did there? In your test prep, as you practice ACT Science problems, the key is to figure out why you answered questions wrong. Is Interpretation of Data giving you trouble? Maybe it’s Scientific Investigation. Or maybe Models/Experiments questions stump you.

It can feel frustrating to master each problem type at first. But each time you sit down to review what you got wrong—and why—in ACT Science questions, you’re building knowledge that will help you on test day. It’s the best way to improve your ACT score—and a great way to help you get into your dream college.

At the end of the day, there’s only one piece of advice that really matters: keep going! You can do it!

Rachel is a Magoosh Content Creator. She writes and updates content on our High School and GRE Blogs to ensure students are equipped with the best information during their test prep journey. As a test-prep instructor for more than five years in there different countries, Rachel has helped students around the world prepare for various standardized tests, including the SAT, ACT, TOEFL, GRE, and GMAT, and she is one of the authors of our Magoosh ACT Prep Book . Rachel has a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Brown University, an MA in Cinematography from the Université de Paris VII, and a Ph.D. in Film Studies from University College London. For over a decade, Rachel has honed her craft as a fiction and memoir writer and public speaker. Her novel, THE BALLERINAS , is forthcoming in December 2021 from St. Martin’s Press , while her memoir, GRADUATES IN WONDERLAND , co-written with Jessica Pan, was published in 2014 by Penguin Random House. Her work has appeared in over a dozen online and print publications, including Vanity Fair Hollywood. When she isn’t strategically stringing words together at Magoosh, you can find Rachel riding horses or with her nose in a book. Join her on Twitter , Instagram , or Facebook !

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15.2: Reviewing the Principles of Scientific Reasoning

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• Page ID 22049

• Bradley H. Dowden
• California State University Sacramento

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One fairly significant aspect of scientific reasoning distinguishes it from other reasoning: Its justification process can be more intricate. For example, you and I might look back over our experience of gorillas, seeing them in zoos and seeing pictures of them in books, and draw the conclusion that all gorillas are black. A biological scientist interested in making a statement about gorilla color would not be so quick to draw this conclusion; he or she would contact gorilla experts and would systematically search through information from all the scientific reports about gorillas to check whether the general claim about gorilla color has even one counterexample. Only if none were found would the scientist then say, "Given all the evidence so far, all gorillas are black." The scientific community as a whole is even more cautious. It would wait to see whether any other biologists disputed the first biologist's claim. If not, only then would the community agree that all gorillas are black. This difference between scientific reasoning and ordinary reasoning can be summed up by saying that scientific reasoning has higher standards of proof.

Scientists don't rummage around the world for facts just so they can accumulate more facts. They gather specific facts to reach general conclusions, the "laws of science." Why? Because a general conclusion encompasses a great variety of specific facts, and because a general claim is more useful for prediction, understanding and explanation, which are the three primary goals of science. Scientists aren't uninterested in specifics, but they usually view specific data as a stepping stone to a broader or more general overview of how the world works. This point can be expressed by saying that scientists prefer laws to facts. Although there is no sharp line between laws and facts, facts tend to be more specific; laws, more general.

The power that generality provides is often underestimated. At the zoo, suppose you spot a cage marked "Margay" although the margay is out of sight at the moment. You have never heard of a margay, yet you can effortlessly acquire a considerable amount of knowledge about the margay, just by noticing that the cage is part of your zoo's new rare-feline center. It’s cat-like. If so, then you know it cannot survive in an atmosphere of pure nitrogen, that it doesn't have gills, and that it was not hatched from an egg. You know this about the unseen margay because you know on scientific authority that no cat-like beings can survive in nitrogen, that no cats have gills, and that no cats are hatched from eggs. You don’t know all this first-hand, but you’ve heard it indirectly from scientists, and you’ve never heard of any serious disagreement. Of course, scientific generalizations can be wrong. And maybe no experiment has ever been performed to test whether margays can live on pure nitrogen. But you are confident that if there were serious suspicions, the scientists would act quickly to run the tests. Knowing this about how scientists act, you rest comfortably with the generalizations and with your newly acquired knowledge about margays.

Scientific Reasoning Assignment

The introductory-level Scientific Reasoning Assignments ask students to write a one-page paper outlining their solution to a problem that arises from the content material in the course. The papers are to include four parts: (a) a diagram (usually a graph, but not always), (b) a conclusion or solution statement for the problem, (c) an explanation of the approach taken to solve the problem, and (d) a discussion of shortcomings of the solution or approach. The five assignments of this form carried out over the course of a semester included the content areas of Lewis Structures, G-T diagrams, automobile fuels, batteries, and ozone depletion mechanisms. The papers are intended to give students opportunities to practice locating appropriate sources (and citing them properly), writing effectively to explain scientific data or ideas to others, and to illustrate their scientific ideas using diagrams or graphs.

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• Using effective research strategies to locate appropriate sources
• Writing effectively
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Scientific Reasoning

Home > About CAMP > Institutional Research & Effectiveness > Assessment > Scientific Reasoning

Scientific reasoning is defined as the ability to recognize and understand the scientific method, concepts, processes, and applications used in the pursuit of knowledge. Scientific literacy prepares individuals to make informed decisions and engage with issues related to the natural, physical, and social world. Degree graduates will recognize and know how to apply the scientific method, and evaluate empirical information.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• Generate an empirically evidenced and logical argument
• Distinguish a scientific argument from a non-scientific argument
• Reason by deduction, induction, and analogy
• Distinguish between causal and correlational relationships
• Recognize methods of inquiry that lead to scientific knowledge

Sample: Students who are considered prospective graduates. This group includes students enrolled in a degree program and who have earned 40 or more credits and are enrolled in BIO 101, BIO 102, MTH 155 and/or MTH 245. Assignments for these students will be collected regardless of instructional modality (online, hybrid, in-person).

Direct- Professional Readiness will be assessed utilizing course-embedded assignments. The course-embedded assignments will be collected from the following general education courses: BIO 101, BIO 102, MTH 155 and/or MTH 245. Student work will be evaluated with a rubric using the Association of American College & Universities open source rubric as a template.

Indirect- Camp’s Graduate Survey

Target: 80% of students will score a (3) or higher, on direct assessment, which demonstrates proficiency.

Direct: In AY 2019-20, 40 students were enrolled in the designated courses that meet the criteria set out in Camp’s Assessment Plan. Of these the work of 21 students were randomly selected for review. Nine (9) students scored between 1.5 and 2.9 on their submissions and the other 12 between 3.0 and 4.0. Based on these results only 57% of students met the target. Weakness included students investigations that are too board, elements of the methodology are incorrectly developed and/or unfocused.

Graduate Survey

% Moderate and Great Extent

Action Plan: The General Education Workgroup modified the courses and assignments used for this assessment. During 2019-20 assessment year that there was an issue with certain sections of BIO and the laboratory assignment. All the instructions for each assignment were reviewed and made uniform to ensure the same instructions over sections of each course. Scientific reasoning will be assessed next in 2022-23.

The AI Classroom Hype Is All Wrong, Some Educators Say

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Many educators who have used generative artificial intelligence tools in their work have called the emerging technology a “game changer.”

Some say it’s been especially helpful in reducing the time it takes to do planning or administrative work , such as creating schedules, crafting lesson plans, and writing letters of recommendation for students. Teachers say they work an average of 57 hours a week , but less than half of that time is spent teaching.

“I think the use of AI has streamlined many aspects of teaching and has saved much prep time for teachers,” said a high school fine arts teacher in California in an open-ended response to an EdWeek Research Center survey conducted in March and April.

But amid all the encouragement to try the technology, there are plenty of educators who haven’t tried AI tools and don’t plan to start . These educators are more skeptical of the technology and don’t believe it should be used in K-12.

In open-ended responses to the EdWeek Research Center survey, educators shared their reasoning:

It could degrade critical thinking skills

   ai is not as wonderful as you all make it out to be. how do we expect our next generation to learn to think if all we teach them is how to use ai.

— District-level administrator, Ohio

   AI is driving a wedge between critical thinking and imagination.

— High school foreign language teacher, New Jersey

   AI are machines. They have been trained using stolen data. Students should be learning, questioning, problem-solving, and doing their own work. Teachers should as well. I do not believe AI can ethically be used.

— High school English teacher, Louisiana

   Students should not use AI until they have demonstrated some level of mastery on a subject. Students should not even use a calculator until they can do arithmetic calculations without tools. Problem solving starts in the mind, not on a keypad.

— High school math teacher, Texas

   AI and use of computers in the classroom has diminished everyone's ability to think, learn and reason. It's too easy to punch in a subject and get an immediate answer, which may or may not be correct. How many times have we heard "the computer model says this or that," so therefore that's the end of the discussion. Now I hear AI says this or that. Machines do not and can never have the capabilities of the human mind and the human experience. They can never have the ability to reason. They can never have the ability to rely on "gut instinct," which is correct most of the time. They can never have the ability to say "something just isn't right here." All they can do is look at the data that is fed into them and go from there. And that data is totally dependent on the character of the human or humans feeding it into them.

— District-level administrator, Texas

   I feel AI is used less as a resource and more as a crutch. I was shaken when I found out how many yearbook groups have used AI to write their entire yearbook and make the theme and set the ladder and put it together. We don't like students using AI because it's considered "plagiarism" but yet some teachers use it for everything. I don't mind AI as a brainstorming tool but when you give AI the ability to do all your work is when I have issues with it.

— Middle school teacher, Missouri

The human touch is better

   i have never used ai for anything in my job. i would think we still have to follow through with the actual teaching. ai can't do what i do.

— High school math teacher, Michigan

   While AI is the future, it's more important that teachers know their subject matter, and AI should only be used as a supplement to the teacher's scope of knowledge. To use it beyond that is ineffective as the presentation of the knowledge will be presented with less passion and clarity.

— Middle school physical education teacher, Virginia

   While I believe AI is here to stay, I do not believe that it should be used to simply replace the human aspect of the learning experience. If AI is used by instructors or teachers heavily, then the computer is essentially doing the teachers' jobs for them and the teacher is simply the middle person who repeats what the computer tells them.

— High school career-technical education teacher, Missouri

   AI concerns me in that educators need to know their "stuff" before blindly having AI create lessons, etc., to administer in class. I have tried AI and caught multiple errors in its creation. If I had used what AI created, I would have considered myself unethical in teaching students through that lesson because it contained many errors.

— District-level administrator, Alabama

   Utilizing AI to develop assessments is impersonal. If the general scientific community can acknowledge that generative AI utilizes biased information to create material, why would we rely on these tools to create unbiased assessments?

— High school social studies teacher, Montana

The K-12 system isn’t prepared

   i think that ai is a very dangerous phenomenon for learning and education. it seems like it is thrust upon us and unleashed without adequate preparation to handle the consequences for learning and teaching. i think this should be the number one topic for governments and academic institutions to address immediately..

— High school foreign language teacher, Pennsylvania

   I fear AI is yet another trend that education professionals are running headlong into without sufficient forethought and planning.

— Elementary fine arts teacher, Virginia

   I have never used AI and never will. I think it gives fuel to a fire that we won't be able to control.

— Elementary teacher, North Carolina

Concerns about how it affects their jobs

   last year, i spent a lot of time talking with english teaching colleagues about how to tackle the new problem of ai generated student work. we researched apps to check for plagiarism and ai produced writing and didn't find a good source to help us. this new issue is requiring teachers to rethink the types of assignments we give and the ways we ask students to produce writing in class so we can ensure they are producing original works. it's frustrating and time consuming..

— High school English teacher, Minnesota

   Artificial Intelligence will render my job unnecessary within five years. My students use Grammarly and ChatGPT to write their essays, and they even use it to email their teachers. Commercials show corporations praising their staff for using it to email each other. If humans no longer need to learn how to communicate well in writing—if AI does it for us—then what I have been teaching students for decades is no longer needed. What's more, my students already realize this and are showing it in their attitudes and efforts in writing class.

— Middle school English teacher, Massachusetts

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