American Educational Research Journal Summer 2003, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 495538 Integrating Curriculum,Instruction, Assessment, and Evaluation in a Technology- Supported Genetics Learning Environment Daniel T. Hickey University of Georgia Ann C. H. Kindfield Educational Designs Unlimited, Inc. Paul Horwitz Concord Consortium Mary Ann T. Christie Lesley University This article describes a n extended collaboration between a development team and a n evaluation team working with GenScope, a n open-ended explorato y software tool. In some respects, this was a routine evaluation, documentilzg substantial gains (of roughly 1 SD) in genetics reasoning ability in all but 1 of 1 7 classes, despite challenges presented by school computer-lab settings. Relative to matched comparison classes, largergains werefound in technical biology and general science courses but not in college prep or honors biology courses. In other respects, our effort illustrates the value of new views of assess- ment, technology, and research. The alignment of a sophisticated research assessment and simple classroom assessments shed light on initial failures, spurring revision. By refining the GenScope activities and extending the class- room assessments, we supported worthwhile whole-class discourse around the shared understanding of the softwaare A follow-up study in a laptop-equipped classroom yielded the absolute and relative gains (3.1 SD and I .6SD) that proponents of such innovations have longpromised. In tTetrospect, the strengths and weakness of the study illustrate the value of newer "design-based" approaches to educational research. KEYWORDS: assessment, design-based research, evaluation, genetics learning, model-based reasoning, validity. G enetics is a particularly challenging topic for science teachers and their students. It involves relationships between events that occur at various levels of biological organization and describes probabilistic phenomena that are not directly observable because they take place too quickly or too