This study examined the efficiency of using the same rating scale categories in measuring affective constructs for students with distinctive levels of achievement. Data used in this study came from the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011, as a case, on the three scales that were designed to measure eighth graders' attitudes…

This study used three previously validated instruments, namely Science Academic Hardiness (SAH), Students' Conceptions of Learning Science (COLS) and Science Learning Self-Efficacy (SLSE) on 431 Singaporean students. Using structural equation modeling, results showed that the SAH commitment dimension a positive predictor explaining both the…

This paper presents historical analysis of the development of science education in Singapore from 1997 to 2011 with the aim of understanding the impact of education initiatives introduced during this period known as the ability-driven phase in Singapore. To provide context for the research, the author first describes the state of governance and…

This study aimed to comparatively review student-level and school-level factors affecting scientific literacy in Singapore, Italy and Turkey. Two-level hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) was applied to the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment data set. The findings show that (a) the enjoyment of science, interest in broad science…

We report here on a comparative study of middle school students' attitudes towards science involving three countries: England, Singapore and the U.S.A. Complete attitudinal data sets from TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) 2011 were used, thus giving a very large sample size (N = 20,246), compared to other studies in the…

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…

Mathematical problem solving is the mainstay of the mathematics curriculum for Singapore schools. In the preparation of prospective mathematics teachers, the authors, who are mathematics teacher educators, deem it important that pre-service mathematics teachers experience non-routine problem solving and acquire an attitude that predisposes them to…

Background and Purpose: Research in nature of science (NOS) among Asia-Pacific countries such as Singapore is arguably scarce. This study aimed to survey Singaporean secondary school students' views of NOS with a newly developed instrument named Students' Views of Nature of Science (SVNOS), which included various key aspects of NOS that are…

The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) is a comprehensive and widely used instrument for assessing motivation based on the self-determination theory. Currently, no such comprehensive instrument exists to assess the different domains of motivation (stipulated by the self-determination theory) in mathematics education at the pre-tertiary level (grades…

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 quantitative research study reports the effectiveness of demonstrations supported by appropriate information and communication technology (ICT) tools such as dataloggers, animations and video clips on upper secondary school students' attitudes towards the learning of physics. A sample of 94 secondary four express stream (age 16 years) and…

Recent research reveals that students' interest in school science begins to decline at an early age. As this lack of interest could result in fewer individuals qualified for scientific careers and a population unprepared to engage with scientific societal issues, it is imperative to investigate ways in which interest in school science can be…

This paper presents a study that illustrates how the author and an in service secondary school teacher used basic synchronous computer mediated communications (CMC) technology to help them uncover students' physics preconceptions and thought processes (including their misconceptions and misunderstandings) in a real class setting. In this paper, I…

Students' normative perceptions of the nature of Science and their worldviews on the relevance of Science in pragmatic everyday contexts influence their keenness in wanting to learn Science and develop scientific mindsets. The chief goal of the research study delineated in this paper was to examine patterns of commonalities and variations in the…

Fourth-year university students (n=12) in a secondary-science-education degree program in Singapore were interviewed after demonstrations of five familiar chemical reactions. The majority of interviewees used perceptually-dominated rather than conceptually-dominated thinking and were unable to use scientific concepts consistently across the five…