Previous studies noted the scantiness of diagnostic instruments for the assessment of students' understanding of fundamental biochemistry concepts. Consequently, within this study, a four-tier test for the examination of secondary school students' conceptual understanding of amino acids, proteins, and enzymes has been developed. Items in the test…

Throughout the world scientific reasoning (SR) is a valuable and desirable ability to gain deeper understanding of science in all grade level. In the current study, we first adapted the SPR-I (7) which consists of seven items with three sub-dimensions as the experimentation, the understanding the nature of science (NOS) and the data…

This article reports an international initiative to develop and validate a "situational interest questionnaire" in three cultural/linguistic contexts: Canada (French), USA (English), and Taiwan (Chinese). The 20-item solution ([alpha] = 0.90) presented four factors: "enjoyment," "value," "attention/sustained…

This study developed and validated an assessment that measures interdisciplinary understanding using the topic of carbon cycling, the Interdisciplinary Science Assessment for Carbon Cycling (ISACC). This work was motivated by the need to assess interdisciplinary understanding, defined as the ability to solve problems requiring knowledge and skills…

Triggered by the pilot of the "Gao-Kao" reform, the avoidance of physics courses in senior high school has aroused the concern of society in China. The factors that influence the motivation to learn physics are an important research topic, especially for countries that have a disciplinary-based education tradition in secondary school.…

Students' science identity has been identified as an important construct that positively influences their learning engagement, persistence, and career intentions in science. This paper reported the process of developing and validating an instrument that can be used to assess high school students' science identity. The development of this…

This study developed and validated a scale of STEM project-based learning (PBL) experience, which comprises four dimensions: scientific inquiry, technological application, engineering design, and mathematical processing. The participants were 727 primary higher graders. Both within-network and between-network approaches were adopted to analyze the…

This paper describes the development, final design and validation of an instrument that measures a range of student interactions and satisfaction in undergraduate chemistry laboratories. Student surveys or conceptual and attitudinal instruments are widely used techniques for collecting relevant information on student learning. However, there is a…

New notions of science teaching and learning provide challenges for designing and using classroom assessment. Existing assessments are not effective in assessing and supporting desired science learning because they are not designed to capture and aid such learning (NRC 2014; Pellegrino 2013). In addition, it is important to evaluate effectiveness…

Scientific reasoning competencies are highlighted in science education policy papers and standard documents in various countries around the world and pre-service science teachers are asked to develop them during teacher training as part of their professional competencies. In order to monitor the development of pre-service science teachers'…

There is growing evidence that science capital (science-related forms of social and cultural capital) and family habitus (dispositions for science) influence STEM career decisions by youth. This study presents reliability and validity evidence for a survey of factors that influence career aspirations in science. Psychometric properties of the…

Our study addresses the need for new approaches to prepare novice elementary teachers to teach both science and engineering, and for new tools to measure how well those approaches are working. This in particular would inform the teacher educators of the extent to which novice teachers are developing expertise in facilitating their students'…

Employers lament that science graduates, particularly engineering students, lack professional skills, despite increasing emphasis on teaching professional skills in their curriculum. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior as an overarching framework, one explanation for skill development gaps may be students' attitude towards learning professional…

Various inquiry approaches have been promoted in science classrooms as a way for students to engage in, and have a deeper understanding of scientific discourse. However, there is a paucity of empirical evidence to suggest how children's actions and engagement in these approaches, or "practical epistemologies" (Sandoval, Science Education…

This study focused on the development and validation of a three-tier multiple-choice diagnostic instrument about the ecological footprint. Each question in the three-tier test comprised by; (a) the content tier, assessing content knowledge; (b) the reason tier, assessing explanatory knowledge; and (c) the confidence tier that differentiates lack…