Predicting item difficulty is highly important in education for both teachers and item writers. Despite identifying a large number of explanatory variables, predicting item difficulty remains a challenge in educational assessment with empirical attempts rarely exceeding 25% of variance explained. This paper analyses 216 science items of key stage…

This study examines the gender gaps in mathematics and physics in Chinese middle schools. The data is from the Education Bureau management database which includes all middle school students who took high school entrance exam in a district of Beijing from 2006-2013. The ordinary least square model and quantile regression model are applied. This…

Background: Researchers have indicated that assessment practices and methods should support learners' construction of meaningful understanding of knowledge. Understanding students' conceptions of assessment will enable us to construct more realistic, valid and fair assessments. Learners' conceptualization of assessment would be imperative to serve…

This study aims to investigate the effects of using diorama on 7th grade students' academic achievement and science learning skills in "human being and environment relation" unit. The participants were 49 (E:25, C:24) 7th grade students studying during 2015-16 academic year in Diyarbakir, Turkey. An achievement test and "science…

An efficient way to improve the quality of education in critical thinking is developing the better tests. The test has been shifted towards the use of computer-based procedures. Lack of specific topic of critical thinking tests in science and the advanced of technology made the researcher intended to develop and validate a test to measure…

This quantitative study was designed to investigate if relationships existed between elementary science teachers' self-efficacy toward science teaching, schedule structure (self-contained or departmentalized), experience level of teachers, amount of time dedicated to science instruction, and student achievement on a standardized science…

The last two decades have seen fast-moving and wholescale changes in the ways that education is now provided in French schools, in the nature of learner assessment, and in the form and scale of system evaluation. Innovation and reform have in part followed international trends, themselves triggered by the global impact of the international…

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of using the problem-based learning (PBL) teaching strategy on student academic achievement and secondary learning outcomes when compared with the traditional lecture (TL) for an undergraduate Biomechanics course. Successive undergraduate Biomechanics courses--a TL cohort and a PBL cohort--were…

The aim of this study is to examine whether gender and ethnicity differences are manifested in chemistry achievement and self-regulated learning among a matriculation programme students in Malaysia. The result of students' midterm chemistry exam was used as the measure of chemistry achievement. The information of self-regulated learning was…

The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) enables participating countries to monitor 15-year old students' progress in reading, mathematics, and science literacy. The present study investigates persistent factors that contribute to science performance of Turkish students in PISA 2006 and PISA 2009. Additionally, the study…

Background/Context: East Asian schools receive much attention for the comparatively high achievement of their students. To account for this success, scholars and commentators advance broad claims about the rote character of instruction or the complexity of classroom practice, typically generalizing to an entire nation. Yet little is known about…

To improve the student learning outcomes of an introductory Human Anatomy and Physiology course we have implemented many changes over the last two years. In this study, the third of a three-part series, we present data from surveys collected and analyzed during the spring semester of 2018 at the University of Northern Colorado. The results reveal…

Background: Dialogic teaching, specifically the use of argumentation in teaching, is seen as promoting scientific literacy and understanding. However, international evidence consistently shows that the prevailing modes of classroom talk are monologic. The problem is how to transform science education into dialogic and argumentative spaces. One way…

The present study was aimed at investigating the effects of a video feedback coaching intervention for upper-grade primary school teachers on students' cognitive gains in scientific knowledge. This teaching intervention was designed with the use of inquiry-based learning principles for teachers, such as the empirical cycle and the posing of…

The study aimed at identifying the reasons behind the Jordanian students' drop of performance in the TIMSS 2015 from the point of view of their teachers. Survey method was used because teachers are the most able to decide upon the reasons of this fall and so a questionnaire was designed to recognize their point of view concerning the reasons of…