TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing tenth-grade students' problem solving ability online in the area of Earth sciences
AU - Chang, Chun Yen
AU - Barufaldi, James P.
AU - Lin, Ming Chao
AU - Chen, Yi Chun
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper is based on work supported by the National Science Council under Contract Nos. NSC 92-2524-S003-010, 93-2524-S003-001, 94-2524-S003-014, and was completed while the first author was a Senior Research Fellow at Center for Science and Mathematics Education, The University of Texas at Austin, USA in 2005. The authors wish to thank the NSC of Taiwan for financing this project. The data presented, the statements made and the views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Jing-Ye Jhan and Hao-Chuan Wang.
PY - 2007/7
Y1 - 2007/7
N2 - This study examined tenth-grade students' (n = 263) problem solving ability (PSA) online through assessing students' domain-specific knowledge (DSK) and reasoning skills (RS) in Earth sciences as well as their attitudes toward (AT) Earth sciences related topics in a secondary school of Taiwan. The students' PSA was evaluated based on a previous model (Chang, C. Y. (2004, November 26-27). Trends in assessing student earth science problem solving ability: the importance of domain-specific knowledge and reasoning skills in earth sciences. Paper presented at the Seoul Conference for International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO), Seoul, Korea; Chang, C. Y., & Barufaldi, J. P. (submitted). Does problem solving = prior knowledge + reasoning skills in science? An exploratory study. Journal of Experimental Education; Chang, C. Y., & Weng, Y. H. (2002). An exploratory study on students' problem-solving ability in earth science. International Journal of Science Education, 24(5), 441-452) which empirically established that students' PSA is a composite of DSK, RS and AT subscales. Major findings are as follows: (a) The correlation coefficient among students' DSK, RS and AT was relatively small, indicating that these subscales might have successfully represented different constructs of students' PSA; (b) a significantly positive correlation existed between students' PSA total scores and each subscale. It is, therefore, suggested that students' PSA may be potentially assessed online by measuring their essential components in the area of Earth sciences.
AB - This study examined tenth-grade students' (n = 263) problem solving ability (PSA) online through assessing students' domain-specific knowledge (DSK) and reasoning skills (RS) in Earth sciences as well as their attitudes toward (AT) Earth sciences related topics in a secondary school of Taiwan. The students' PSA was evaluated based on a previous model (Chang, C. Y. (2004, November 26-27). Trends in assessing student earth science problem solving ability: the importance of domain-specific knowledge and reasoning skills in earth sciences. Paper presented at the Seoul Conference for International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO), Seoul, Korea; Chang, C. Y., & Barufaldi, J. P. (submitted). Does problem solving = prior knowledge + reasoning skills in science? An exploratory study. Journal of Experimental Education; Chang, C. Y., & Weng, Y. H. (2002). An exploratory study on students' problem-solving ability in earth science. International Journal of Science Education, 24(5), 441-452) which empirically established that students' PSA is a composite of DSK, RS and AT subscales. Major findings are as follows: (a) The correlation coefficient among students' DSK, RS and AT was relatively small, indicating that these subscales might have successfully represented different constructs of students' PSA; (b) a significantly positive correlation existed between students' PSA total scores and each subscale. It is, therefore, suggested that students' PSA may be potentially assessed online by measuring their essential components in the area of Earth sciences.
KW - Assessment
KW - Problem solving
KW - Science education
KW - Secondary school
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U2 - 10.1016/j.chb.2006.02.014
DO - 10.1016/j.chb.2006.02.014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33846580126
SN - 0747-5632
VL - 23
SP - 1971
EP - 1981
JO - Computers in Human Behavior
JF - Computers in Human Behavior
IS - 4
ER -