Development and evaluation of a short RIASEC interest inventory

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - This study set out to develop a short interest inventory based on Holland’s model of vocational personality types using items...     

A psychometric evaluation of the digital logic concept inventory

Concept inventories hold tremendous promise for promoting the rigorous evaluation of teaching methods that might remedy common student misconceptions and promote deep learning. The measurements from concept inventories can be trusted only if the concept inventories are evaluated both by expert feedback and statistical scrutiny (psychometric evaluation). Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory provide two psychometric frameworks for evaluating the quality of assessment tools. We discuss how these theories can be applied to assessment tools generally and then apply them to the Digital Logic Concept Inventory (DLCI). We demonstrate that the DLCI is sufficiently reliable for research purposes when used in its entirety and as a post-course assessment of students’ conceptual understanding of digital logic. The DLCI can also discriminate between students across a wide range of ability levels, providing the most information about weaker students’ ability levels.     

Wallace and natural selection, 1858

In the nineteenth century, Alfred Russel Wallace was generally acknowledged as one of the founders of evolutionary theory. But, during the twentieth century, his contributions came to be neglected as Darwin worship often replaced cogent historical assessment. This is a story worth studying. It shows how scientific advances are often simultaneously made by many different individuals working independently; these advances are as much products of their intellectual context as they are of individual genius or inspiration. The story also shows the power of social background and privilege within science (how Darwin managed to avoid being pre-empted by Wallace), how scientists compete for priority, and how future generations co-opt history to suit their own purposes.     

Student understandings of natural selection

This paper examines the continuation of a study investigating senior secondary students' understanding of concepts in biology. In this study, year 11 student understandings of natural selection were examined by questionnaire using different question formats. The SOLO taxonomy of Biggs and Collis (1982) was used as the theoretical framework with which the quality of student learning was assessed. This paper puts forward the usefulness of the SOLO taxonomy in assessing student understanding in biology in general and in examining student understanding of the concept of natural selection in particular. The paper goes on to examine the implications of these results and raises issues which have applicability to criterion-based assessment in secondary science. Specializations: science and technology education, biology teacher education, applications of multimedia to science education     

What is the unit of natural selection?

The gene as the solution to the debate over the level at which natural selection acts has often been termed as too reductionist, but is this a valid criticism? Exploring this question in the context of nonlinearity illuminates not only the debate over the unit of natural selection but also the broader debate on reductionism versus holism in science.     

Development of mentor teacher role inventory

This study aimed to develop and investigate the validity and reliability of the Mentor Teacher Role Inventory (MTRI). A total of 1843 student teachers in the Distance English Teacher Training Program participated in the study. The 58 items of the Mentor Teacher Role Inventory underwent principal factor analysis, which revealed nine factors relating to mentorship and explained 52.971% of the total variance. The KMO value of the MTRI was calculated as .968. The Cronbach's alpha was .951. These results indicated that a reliable and valid MTRI could be used for both the distance English teacher training programme and other distance teacher education programmes.     

Development of a student perception inventory

Students learn new or difficult information most effectively when the classroom environment is compatible with their learning style preferences. Determining learning style preferences can be accomplished by administering the Learning Style Inventory (LSI). However, to understand compatibility with the classroom, an instrument that quantifies student perceptions of elements within the environment is essential. This paper describes development and field‐testing of such an instrument‐the Student Perception Inventory (SPI). The SPI was administered to 80 gifted middle school students and was found to provide useful student perception data. Information needed to improve learning environments for gifted learners, especially underachieving gifted students, was found when using the LSI in conjunction with the SPI.     

Development of the child care worker job stress inventory

After a series of instrument development studies, a mail survey was conducted with 196 randomly selected family day care providers (FDCPs) and child care center workers (CCCWs) residing in the state of Maryland (response rates were 76.6% and 70.5%, respectively). Embedded in the instrument were three job stress scales, specific to child care workers, measuring job demands, job control, and job resources. Extensive psychometric testing of the three 17-item instruments demonstrated several areas of strength. The job demands scale, because of its breadth of stressors covered, fared slightly worse on indicators of reliability (alpha = 0.77; mean interitem correlation [MIC] = 0.17; item-to-total correlations [ITCs] = 0.14 to 0.49) than did job control (alpha = 0.88; MIC = 0.31; ITCs = 0.26 to 0.69) and job resources (alpha = 0.89; MIC = 0.35; ITCs = 0.32 to 0.70). Known groups validity was demonstrated through a conceptually meaningful pattern of differences between FDCPs and CCCWs. Construct validity for all three scales was demonstrated by a pattern of stronger correlations with conceptually similar versus dissimilar instruments. Average correlations with similar versus dissimilar instruments were: job demands, 0.54 versus 0.24; job control, 0.74 versus 0.30; and job resources, −0.53 versus 0.30. Similar to the reliability analysis, results of factor analysis were stronger for job control and job resources than for job demands.     

A psychometric evaluation of the career transition inventory with Turkish participants

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - This study examined the psychometric properties of the Career Transition Inventory after translation into Turkish (TR). A sample of...     

Development and validation of the meaning of work inventory among French workers

The purpose of this study was to validate a psychometric instrument among French workers for assessing the meaning of work. Following an empirical framework, a two-step procedure consisted of exploring and then validating the scale among distinctive samples. The consequent Meaning of Work Inventory is a 15-item scale based on a four-factor model, and assesses the importance, understanding, direction, and purpose of work. The results indicate that this instrument is reliable for assessing the meaning of work in the French context. Implications for career counseling practices are discussed.     

A conceptual guide to natural history museum visitors' understanding of evolution

Museum visitors are an ideal population for assessing the persistence of the conceptual barriers that make it difficult to grasp Darwinian evolutionary theory. In comparison with other members of the public, they are more likely to be interested in natural history, have higher education levels, and be exposed to the relevant content. If museum visitors do not grasp evolutionary principles, it seems unlikely that other members of the general public would do so. In the current study, 32 systematically selected visitors to three Midwest museums of natural history provided detailed open‐ended explanations of biological change in seven diverse organisms. They were not told that these were evolutionary problems. Responses were coded as: informed naturalistic reasoning, featuring some understanding of key evolutionary concepts, novice naturalistic reasoning, featuring intuitive explanations that are also present in childhood, and creationist reasoning, featuring supernatural explanations. All visitors were mixed reasoners, using one or more of these patterns in different permutations across the seven organisms: 72% used a combination of informed naturalistic reasoning and novice naturalistic reasoning, while a further 28% added creationist reasoning to this mix. Correlational analyses indicated that for many visitors these reasoning patterns were coherent rather than fragmented. The theoretical model presented in this article contributes to an analysis of the developmental and cultural factors associated with these patterns. This could help educators working in diverse educational settings understand how to move visitors and students toward more informed reasoning patterns. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:326–353, 2010     

Development of a short form of the attitudes toward mathematics inventory

Existing instruments designed to measure mathematics attitudes were too long, dated, or assessed with only western samples. To address this issue, a shortened version of the Attitudes Toward Mathematics Inventory (short ATMI) which measures four subscales??enjoyment of mathematics, motivation to do mathematics, self-confidence in mathematics, and perceived value of mathematics??was created. Its factor structure, reliability, and validity were assessed with 1,601 participants from Singapore. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the original four-factor structure. Within this structure, however, several items were found to correlate highly with others. Their removal either improved or did not impact the properties of the instrument. As a result, these items were removed to produce the short ATMI. Furthermore, a very high correlation (r?=?.96) was found between the enjoyment and motivation subscales. Results of further analysis suggested the removal of the motivation subscale. The short ATMI exhibited strong correlations with the original scale (mean r?=?.96), good overall internal consistencies, both for the full short version (???=?.93) and for the individual subscales (mean ???=?.87), and satisfactory test?Cretest reliability over a 1-month period (mean r _xx ?=?.75). The validity of the short ATMI was further demonstrated through inter-correlations between its subscales, and through correlations with mathematics anxiety and achievement test scores. Participants were able to complete the short ATMI in less than 10?min, making it a viable option when survey administration time is limited. This time would reduce further with the removal of the motivation subscale.     

The nature of naive explanations of natural selection

Unlike some pivotal ideas in the history of science, the basic notion of natural selection is remarkably simple and so one might expect most students to easily grasp the basic principles of the Darwinian theory; yet many students nevertheless have difficulty understanding Darwinian evolution. We suggest that misconceptions about natural selection arise from mistaken categorization. Our thesis for explaining students’ failure to understand this concept or evolution in general is not that they necessarily fail to understand individual Darwinian principles; rather, they often fail to understand the ontological features of equilibration processes, of which evolution is one instance. They thus attribute the evolutionary process in general, and natural selection in particular, with event‐like properties. For example, naive students appear to focus on the idea of survival of the fittest, but embed this idea within an event ontology that involves actors struggling to overcome obstacles and achieve goals. Results showed that most naive subjects’ evolutionary explanations reflected an event ontology. Furthermore, event ontology attributes were positively correlated with non‐Darwinian explanations; by contrast, equilibration attributes, when present, were positively correlated with key Darwinian principles. These findings suggest that students would greatly benefit from science instruction that emphasized the underlying ontology of modern evolutionary theory.     

Student conceptions of natural selection and its role in evolution

Pretests and posttests on the topic of evolution by natural selection were administered to students in a college nonmajors' biology course. Analysis of test responses revealed that most students understood evolution as a process in which species respond to environmental conditions by changing gradually over time. Student thinking differed from accepted biological theory in that (a) changes in traits were attributed to a need-driven adaptive process rather than random genetic mutation and sexual recombination, (b) no role was assigned to variation on traits within a population or differences in reproductive success, and (c) traits were seen as gradually changing in all members of a population. Although students had taken an average of 1.9 years of previous biology courses, performance on the pretest was uniformly low. There was no relationship between the amount of previous biology taken and either pretest or posttest performance. Belief in the truthfulness of evolutionary theory was also unrelated to either pretest or posttest performance. Course instruction using specially designed materials was moderately successful in improving students' understanding of the evolutionary process.