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Assessing scientific thinking and inquiry skills can be challenging because of the complexity and divergence in student behaviors. Scholars have advocated the use of more open-ended problems and choice for the assessment of scientific inquiry. In this paper, we interrogate an experimentation mechanic in an educational science game to examine challenges that choice introduces to game-based assessment of science inquiry practices. Descriptive analysis of gameplay elucidates the difference between choices to explore and iterating on choices as a sign of struggling to progress. 

In this work-in-progress poster, we will present how a team including game designers, learning scientists,and assessment scientists collaborated on an online adventure game, Aqualab, with the goal of creating a comprehensive long-format game that can be used across multiple classroom sessions to support development science inquiry practices as well as assess different learning pathways within the game. In this work-in-progress poster, we discuss how the team approached design and development of the game to ensure validity of the game, and how we are planning to further investigate validity evidence of the gameas a whole. 

Properties of the nuclear equation of state (EoS) can be probed by measuring the dynamical properties of nucleus-nucleus collisions. In this study, we present the directed flow (v1), elliptic flow (v2) and stopping (VarXZ) measured in fixed target Sn+ Sn collisions at 270AMeV with the S'll'RlT Time Projection Chamber. We perform Bayesian analyses in which EoS parameters are var­ied simultaneously within the Improved Quantum Molecular Dynamics-Skyrme (ImQMD-Sky) transport code to obtain a multivariate correlated constraint. The varied parameters include symmetry energy, S0, and slope of the symme­try energy, L, at saturation density, isoscalar effective mass, m;/mN, isovector effective mass, m􀀒/mN and the in-medium cross-section enhancement factor rJ. We find that the flow and VarXZ observables are sensitive to the splitting of proton and neutron effective masses and the in-medium cross-section. Compar­isons of ImQMD-Sky predictions to the S'll' RJT data suggest a narrow range of preferred values for m;/mN, m􀀕/mN and 1/·