Welcome to the VPA Project

The Virtual Performance Assessment Project, also known as VPA, is a research project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  We are developing virtual performance assessments to assess middle school students' science inquiry and process skills. 

The virtual assessments are delivered via technology that has the look and feel of a videogame; yet, is purposefully designed to support student experimentation and scientific reasoning.

In the VPA, students take on the identiy of an avatar (see picture on left) and can walk around the environment, make observations, gather data, and solve a scientific problem within a context.

We are looking for middle school (and possibly high school) students to participate in our project. You can learn more about our project by looking through this website or contacting us.

The Virtual Assessment Project is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences (Grant# R305A080141) and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed on this website are those of the researchers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute of Education Sciences or The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.