Teachers can develop science literacy among pupils through Inquiry-Based Science Education. IBSE helps to evolve the inquiry skills necessary for understanding the world of science and nature. To be able to improve the level of inquiry skills systematically, we need to know the current level among pupils. For this reason, we designed a…

The field of geometrical optics features a broad knowledge base concerning conceptual learning difficulties and student conceptions. However, in contrast to other areas of physics, no widely used standard test instrument exists to assess middle school students' conceptual knowledge of geometrical optics. This is even more true for other areas of…

This study describes the development, validity, and reliability processes of a scientific creativity test for pre-university students, specifically in chemistry. A Chemistry Scientific Creativity Test (CSCT) was constructed based on an analysis of the Scientific Creativity Structure Model (SCSM), Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), and…

Science education should help unleash the creative potential of students, for which an instrument to accurately assess creativity is required. This study aims to develop and validate such a scale to assess science classroom creativity (SCC), which is the creativity expressed by students in the process of learning either individually or…

Critical thinking is one of the most desirable outcomes of education, yet it is often not well defined in curricula. Additionally, there are open questions concerning the domain specificity of critical thinking. In this work, we present two studies aimed at secondary education. Starting from Halpern's conceptualisation of critical thinking we…

A growing body of literature shows that Primary Scientific Literature (PSL) is a valuable and useful tool for STEM. Current assessments measuring the success of PSL-based interventions focus mainly on specific scientific content and/or the specific scientific skills students learn. We believe that the underlying motivation students consider while…

The aim of this study was to develop an instrument to measure upper-level Chinese elementary students' attitudes towards science by addressing problems with existing ones, as highlighted in the literature. The theoretical framework was drawn from the ABC model, which defines attitudes towards science as consisting of affective, behavioural, and…

The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to measure elementary preservice teachers' emotions about teaching science and mathematics. To achieve this goal, a questionnaire, Teacher Emotion for teaching Science and Mathematics (TESaM), was designed and pilot and field tested with a sample of preservice elementary teachers in the…

In this article, we describe the main phases in the development and validation of a questionnaire measuring secondary students' teleology and essentialism conceptions in the context of genetics. The validation process involved 714 Swiss and French secondary school students from 14 different schools. The process included interviews, several pilot…

Interdisciplinary approach is viewed as the best way to learn about and perceive complex scientific phenomena in the real world; therefore, students need to develop interdisciplinary habits of mind in K-12 science education. This article provided a framework for understanding middle school students' interdisciplinary competence that included four…

Despite girls enjoying and being good at physics, the proportion of girls studying physics and going into physics related careers still lags behind that of boys. A large volume of research exists on the factors related to the uptake of girls into physics, however little research looks at the link between parents and their child's physics uptake.…

The purpose of this study is to examine the salient characteristics of the 'Question-Answer Process' (QAP) in senior high school chemistry class between pre- and in-service teachers. We first developed the 'Instrument of Question-Answer Process' (IQAP), and then, applied it to compare salient characteristics of QAP between pre- and in-service…

Technology is important to all aspects of our lives, so helping students develop an accurate understanding of technology should be an educational goal at the K-12 level. Assessments are important tools in reaching this goal. We developed an instrument to measure the technology conceptions of children ages 8-11, the 'What is Technology' (WT)…

Control of variables strategy (CVS) is a core scientific reasoning skill related to domain-general experimentation for evaluating an experimental system and deducing valid conclusions. This study aims to develop, validate, and explore latent factors predicting item difficulty in the test, measuring CVS in physics for high school students. The…

This study was designed to develop an assessment tool to measure high school students' personal epistemology (PE) in the physics domain by using validation processes. Based on theoretical foundations of PE, the PPEQ was conceptualised on six hypothetical dimensions: structure of knowledge [SK], justification of knowledge and knowing [JK],…