In the context of the distinction between normative and descriptive approaches to the relationship between science and religion, this article discusses the recent work of the sociologist Elaine Ecklund. It reviews four of her published outputs, summarising her data concerning the views of religious people and professional scientists, including…

Using TIMSS 2015 data, the present study aimed to explore the profiles of attitudes toward science among Hong Kong eighth-grade students (N = 4138), and further to investigate how these attitudinal profiles might relate with gender and science achievement. In TIMSS, attitudes toward science are specified in terms of four factors: intrinsic…

International large-scale assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have emerged as important tools for understanding educational systems within Asia and around the world. Although the achievement scales tend to capture the majority of the world's attention the background scales have become important tools in…

In recent years, research on students' scientific competencies has generated much discussion. According to the PISA 2015 Assessment and Analytical Framework, both scientific competencies and attitudes towards science -- interest in science, valuing scientific approaches to enquiry (or epistemological beliefs about science), and environmental…

Identifying key determinants of success plays an important role in efforts of assessing the current state of educational practices and implementing effective actions to improve academic performance. Given how important is accurate identification of these determinants for valid comparisons, the aim of this research was to present extensive…

This study explored two under-researched areas on students' attitudes towards science, that is, the structural models representing these attitudes and the role played by school bands in moderating the gender differences in such attitudes. The participants were 360 ninth graders in Hong Kong from 3 school bands. The structural equation modelling…

Many scales contain both positively and negatively worded items. Reverse recoding of negatively worded items might not be enough for them to function as positively worded items do. In this study, we commented on the drawbacks of existing approaches to wording effect in mixed-format scales and used bi-factor item response theory (IRT) models to…

Students' attitude towards science (SAS) is often a subject of investigation in science education research. Survey of rating scale is commonly used in the study of SAS. The present study illustrates how Rasch analysis can be used to provide psychometric information of SAS rating scales. The analyses were conducted on a 20-item SAS scale used in an…

This paper focuses on the views of 16-17-year-old science students from England, Germany, Hong Kong and Sweden on whale hunting, and their perceptions of the views of their international counterparts. The students were all provided with the same decision-making task, discussed the issue in small groups and then presented their views on video,…

The study has integrated the data from PISA 2006 to 2012 to give an overall picture of the cognitive and affective performances and pedagogy of East Asian regions on PISA scientific literacy. Attempts are made to account for their performances based on the PISA data and cultural characteristics. The cognitive science performance of East Asian…

This study uses hierarchical linear modeling to examine the influence of a range of factors on the science performances of Hong Kong students in PISA 2006. Hong Kong has been consistently ranked highly in international science assessments, such as Programme for International Student Assessment and Trends in International Mathematics and Science…

According to the aims of the current junior science curriculum for Hong Kong, students are expected to master inquiry skills for problem-solving, understand the nature of scientific knowledge, and appreciate the limitations of science. These aims are, however, difficult to achieve because available science textbooks focus mainly on the…

This study investigated differences across four countries in the amount and nature of above-average ability and average-ability pre-adolescents' everyday life, scientific, moral, spiritual and religious questions. The participants (N = 975) of this study were fifth-and sixth-grade elementary school students from different schools in Finland (N =…

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Conference on Education and New Developments 2015-END 2015, taking place in Porto, Portugal, from 27 to 29 of June. Education, in our contemporary world, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the human being, in the way one thinks, feels and…