Dialogic Assessment in IB MYP Science: A Conceptual Framework for Enhancing Evidence of Students’ Learning through Theoretical and Reflective Inquiry

Abstract

The Middle Years Programme (MYP) science curriculum of the International Baccalaureate (IB) employs inquiry-based learning to promote whole development of students. However, the prevalent emphasis on written products only measures individual aspects of student performance, omitting the changing interpersonal exchanges important for scientific understanding. Given that scientific knowledge is collectively formed and disseminated through discourse, implementing dialogic assessment within MYP science constitutes a needed expansion beyond conventional processes. This investigation presents a conceptual model designed to broaden documentation of student achievement by integrating scholarly dialogue and reflective critique into classroom practice, anchored in the complementary perspectives of Vygotsky's sociocultural constructivism and Bakhtin's theory of dialogism. Grounded in a qualitative conceptual inquiry resulting from the educational literature and the author’s own observations from nine years of teaching MYP Science within an IB World School in China, the article considers theory together with real practice on dialogue in authentic MYP science assessment. The results reveal that as compared with conventional written evaluation, dialogic assessment provides greater chances to capture scientific reasoning, conceptual understanding, collaborative meaning-making, metacognitive reflection, and student agency. Rather than appealing to another type of assessment, the proposal is to recognize structured academic dialogue as an additional assessment modality that might support evidence production as applied to the current MYP science criteria. The study contributes to a discussion around authentic assessments in inquiry-based science education practice and proposes a conceptual framework for making dialogic assessment part of MYP Science classroom practice.