Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Educational tests and measurements; Science--Ability testing;
Abstract
The development of student's science reasoning abilities is a central goal of science education. To meet this goal researchers have investigated the development of science reasoning abilities using a variety of instruments, Classroom Test of Formal Reasoning, Objective Referenced Evaluation in Science, clinical interviews or laboratory process tests. However, while many of these instruments have been designed to test logical thinking, scientific reasoning, and inquiry skills, problems with them include restriction of student choices, guidance, encouragement of guessing, content dependence, testing of cognitive level only, decontextualized questions, developmental inappropriateness, and time/monetary expense. A novel instrument was developed to fill a gap in the instrument arsenal. The Constructive Inquiry Science Reasoning Skills Test (CISRS) was designed to measure science reasoning skills that would (a) measure science reasoning ability, independent of mathematical or manipulative skills; (b) be relevant without content dependency; and ( c) be capable of administration to classes of college age students in a relatively short period of time. The test items consist of a life-relevant, open-ended query, which charges the participant to devise a means of testing a statement. Two hundred fifty one collegiate freshman enrolled in two different versions of introductory biology at a Midwestern University were pre and post tested using the CISRS. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the validity of the CISRS as a test of scientific reasoning. Evidence for construct related validity was gathered by analyzing the relationship between subject scores on the CISRS with a commonly used instrument for assessing cognitive reasoning levels (Group Assessment of Logical Thinking); follow-up interviews; level of prior science knowledge; as well as measures of the scoring reliability of the CISRS. Analysis of data indicated that the CISRS is able to validly and reliably differentiate lower order science reasoning skills ( e.g., vague references to doing "research") in both treatment groups. However, the items used for the pre and post CISRS did not consistently assess higher order scientific reasoning skills (e.g., controlling and identifying variables), possibly due to the nature of the prompts used.
Year of Submission
2002
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of Biology
First Advisor
Jeffrey Weld
Second Advisor
Cherin Lee
Third Advisor
Lyn Countryman
Date Original
2002
Object Description
1 PDF file (53 leaves)
Copyright
©2002 Matthew John Stier
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Stier, Matthew John, "A Study of the Validation of the Constructive Inquiry Science Reasoning Skills Test" (2002). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2175.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2175
Comments
If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.