Concept inventories (CI) are validated, research-based, multiple-choice tests, which are widely used to assess the effectiveness of pedagogical practices in bringing about conceptual change. In order to be a useful diagnostic tool, a CI must reflect only the student understanding of the conceptual material. The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is…

The aim of this research was to explore students' ideas about chemical reactions and difficulties in understanding the law of conservation of mass in such reactions by using an approach that started from presentations of scientists' work associated with the law. The developed test items relied on: 1) the historical contents that illustrate the…

This quantitative study examines the correlation between international student achievement test outcomes and national competitiveness rankings. Student achievement data are derived from a variation-adjusted, common-scale metric data set for 74 countries that have participated in any of the international mathematics and science achievement tests…

Recent interest in online assessment of scientific inquiry has led to several new online systems that attempt to assess these skills, but producing models that detect when students are successfully practising these skills can be challenging. In this paper, we study models that assess student inquiry in an immersive virtual environment, where a…

When grading students' quizzes and exams, I find that students are seemingly always changing their answers from the right answer to the wrong answer. In fact, I have cautioned students against changing their answer. Colleagues have made similar observations and some books on test-taking strategies advise against answer-changing. In an effort to…

This essay describes Rasch analysis psychometric techniques and how such techniques can be used by life sciences education researchers to guide the development and use of surveys and tests. Specifically, Rasch techniques can be used to document and evaluate the measurement functioning of such instruments. Rasch techniques also allow researchers to…

In today's item response theory (IRT) the response to the test item is considered as a probability event depending on the student's ability and difficulty of items. It is noted that in the scientific literature there is very little agreement about how to determine factors affecting the item difficulty. It is suggested that the difficulty of the…

We have investigated whether and how a categorization of responses to questions on linear distance-time graphs, based on a study of Irish students enrolled in an algebra-based course, could be adopted and adapted to responses from students enrolled in calculus-based physics courses at universities in Flanders, Belgium (KU Leuven) and the Basque…

Similar to all stages of education, the use of the flipped classroom model continues to become more widespread in higher education. This paper aimed to provide insights from a pre-test and post-test experimental design-based exploration of the effects of clicker-aided flipped classroom model on learning achievement, Physics anxiety and students'…

Research on the test structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has largely ignored gender, and research on FCI gender effects (often reported as "gender gaps") has seldom interrogated the structure of the test. These rarely crossed streams of research leave open the possibility that the FCI may not be structurally valid across…

The pedagogical approach for both didactic and laboratory teaching of anatomy has changed in the last 25 years and continues to evolve; however, assessment of student anatomical knowledge has not changed despite the awareness of Bloom's taxonomy. For economic reasons most schools rely on multiple choice questions (MCQ) that test knowledge mastered…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of lessons conducted in out-of-school learning settings on 5th graders science achievement within the scope of a guidance material that was prepared to be used in out-of-school learning settings in accordance with the "Let's Solve the Riddle of Our Body" chapter objectives. The…

How can we help students develop an understanding of chemistry that integrates conceptual knowledge with the experimental and computational procedures needed to apply chemistry in authentic contexts? The current work describes ChemVLab+, a set of online chemistry activities that were developed using promising design principles from chemistry…

This qualitative case study examines the professional development practice of Lesson Study as a vehicle for teacher learning. Through observing the participation and analyzing interviews of a group of United States middle school mathematics educators as they engaged in Lesson Study, this study examines teachers' learning with respect to (a)…

How can we help students develop an understanding of chemistry that integrates conceptual knowledge with the experimental and computational procedures needed to apply chemistry in authentic contexts? The current work describes ChemVLab +, a set of online chemistry activities that were developed using promising design principles from chemistry…