THE DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A MALAYSIAN-BASED BASIC SCIENCE PROCESS SKILLS TEST

Year 2016, Volume: 4 , 342 - 351, 01.09.2016

Eng Tek Ong Norjuhana Mesmen Sabri Mohd Salleh Siti Eshah Moksheın Nik Azmah Nık Yusuff Koon Peng Yeam

Abstract

This paper reports the development and validation of a test that
measures the basic science process skills for upper primary school pupils as
stipulated in the Malaysian science curricula. In the instrument development
phase, 58 Basic Science Process Skills (BSPS) items were generated according to
a set of a priori indicators. These
items were vetted by two reviewers to ensure content validity and to establish
inter-rater agreement, yielding a Cohen’s Kappa value of 0.877, p = < .001.
The BSPS Test was then field tested with a group of 197 upper primary students
(aged 10-12) that represents top, average, and bottom sets. The dataset was
subjected to item analyses, resulting in a quality 29-item BSPS Test. The BSPS
Test has a KR-20 reliability of 0.86, and means for difficulty and
discrimination indices of items that measured at 0.61 and 0.49 respectively.
This paper ends with a discussion as to how the quality 29-item BSPS Test could
be used in the classroom alongside the mandatory science practical assessment,
thus providing the concurrent validity.

Keywords

Basic science process skills, primary science, development, validation, Malaysia

References

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