Using a Concept Inventory to Assess the Reasoning Component of Citizen-Level Science Literacy: Results from a 17,000-Student Study
| Autor: | Natalie Zayas Delgado, Christopher W. Wheeler, Carl T. Kloock, Edward B. Nuhfer, Gregory G. Wood, Christopher Cogan, Anya Goodman |
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| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Concept inventory
Liberal/General Education QH301-705.5 First language Ethnic group Assessment instrument 050109 social psychology College Science Assessment General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology Education Citizen-level Science Literacy Scientific Reasoning Component (UML) Mathematics education Measuring Outcomes of Citizen Science Activities 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences Biology (General) lcsh:QH301-705.5 Socioeconomic status lcsh:LC8-6691 lcsh:Special aspects of education General Immunology and Microbiology LC8-6691 05 social sciences 050301 education General education Special aspects of education Scientific literacy lcsh:Biology (General) Metacognition General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Psychology 0503 education |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, Vol 17, Iss 1, Pp 143-155 (2016) Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, Vol 17, Iss 1 (2015) |
| ISSN: | 1935-7877 |
| Popis: | After articulating 12 concepts for the reasoning component of citizen-level science literacy and restating these as assessable student learning outcomes (SLOs), we developed a valid and reliable assessment instrument for addressing the outcomes with a brief 25-item science literacy concept inventory (SLCI). In this paper, we report the results that we obtained from assessing the citizen-level science literacy of 17,382 undergraduate students, 149 graduate students, and 181 professors. We address only findings at or above the 99.9% confidence level. We found that general education (GE) science courses do not significantly advance understanding of science as a way of knowing. However, the understanding of science’s way of knowing does increase through academic ranks, indicating that the extended overall academic experience better accounts for increasing such thinking capacity than do science courses alone. Higher mean institutional SLCI scores correlate closely with increased institutional selectivity, as measured by the institutions’ higher mean SAT and ACT scores. Socioeconomic factors of a) first-generation student, b) English as a native language, and c) interest in commitment to a science major are unequally distributed across ethnic groups. These factors proved powerful in accounting for the variations in SLCI scores across ethnicities and genders. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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