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'…

General education science courses strive to promote scientific literacy and the development of scientific process skills. However, research shows that many general education courses are still designed to stress content mastery. In this study, the number of topics in five semester-long introductory atmospheric science courses was reduced to…

Assessments of scientific reasoning that capture the intertwining aspects of conceptual, procedural and epistemic knowledge are often associated with intensive qualitative analyses of student responses to open-ended questions, work products, interviews, discourse and classroom observations. While such analyses provide evaluations of students'…

Assessment of higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) provides few opportunities for students to develop more in-depth knowledge, serving students' ability to identify and solve their problems. One type of instrument for measuring HOTS objectively is the two-tier multiple-choice test (TTMCT). This research is part of the research and development…

Module analysis for multiple-choice responses (MAMCR) was applied to a large sample of Force Concept Inventory (FCI) pretest and post-test responses (N[subscript pre] = 4509 and N[subscript post] = 4716) to replicate the results of the original MAMCR study and to understand the origins of the gender differences reported in a previous study of this…

Multiple-choice questions (MCQ) are commonly used on histology examinations. There are many guidelines for how to properly write MCQ and many of them recommend avoiding negatively worded stems. The current study aims to investigate differences between positively and negatively worded stems in a medical histology course by comparing the item…

The optimum assessment structure measures student knowledge accurately and without bias. In this study, the performance of the first-year undergraduate science students from the University College Dublin was evaluated to test the gender equality of the assessment structure in place. Results of male and female students taking three life science…

This study investigated how students used information provided in given energy questions while answering these questions. Participant students were taking at least one college-level introductory science course and were asked to respond to two-tiered format (multiple-choice question and short written response question) energy questions addressing…

In 2016, the Office of the Higher Education Commission issued a directive requiring all higher education institutions in Thailand to have their students take a standardized English proficiency test. According to the directive, the test's results had to align with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). In response to this…

We examine the effect of an integrity pilot campaign on undergraduates' behavior. As with many costly small-scale experiments and pilot programs, our statistical inference has to rely on small sample size. To tackle this issue, we perform a Bayesian retrospective power analysis. In our setup, a lecturer intentionally makes mistakes that favors…

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the status quo across higher education, including in the domain of pedagogy. The author of this article provides a case study of the changes made to one course, "Behavioral Economics," at Swarthmore College, in response to a set of unique, pandemic-related challenges. He begins by providing details on…

Although learner characteristics have been identified as important moderator variables for feedback effectiveness, the question of why learners benefit differently from feedback has only received limited attention. In this study, we investigated: (1) whether learners' dominant goal orientation moderated the effects of computer-based elaborated…

This quasi-experimental study seeks to improve the conceptual quality of summary essays by comparing two conditions, essay prompts with or without a list of 13 broad concepts, the concepts were selected across a continuum of the 100 most frequent words in the lesson materials. It is anticipated that only the most central concepts will be used as…

The current study explores the impact of varying multiple-choice question preview and presentation formats in a test of second language listening proficiency targeting different levels of text comprehension. In a between-participant design, participants completed a 30-item test of listening comprehension featuring implicit and explicit information…

A considerable literature in economics and psychology observes substantial gender differences in risk aversion, confidence, and responses to high pressure. In the educational measurement literature, it has been argued that these differences could disadvantage female students when taking multiple-choice tests, especially if there is a penalty for…