High-School Students’ Epistemic Knowledge of Science and Its Relation to Learner Factors in Science Learning

Fang Ying Yang, Shiang Yao Liu, Chung Yuan Hsu, Guo Li Chiou, Hsin Kai Wu, Ying Tien Wu, Sufen Chen, Jyh Chong Liang, Meng Jung Tsai, Silvia W.Y. Lee, Min Hsien Lee, Che Li Lin, Regina Juchun Chu, Chin Chung Tsai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an online contextualized test for assessing students’ understanding of epistemic knowledge of science. In addition, how students’ understanding of epistemic knowledge of science interacts with learner factors, including time spent on science learning, interest, self-efficacy, and gender, was also explored. The participants were 489 senior high school students (244 males and 245 females) from eight different schools in Taiwan. Based on the result of an extensive literature review, we first identified six factors of epistemic knowledge of science, such as status of scientific knowledge, the nature of scientific enterprise, measurement in science, and so on. An online test was then created for assessing students’ understanding of the epistemic knowledge of science. Also, a learner-factor survey was developed by adopting previous PISA survey items to measure the abovementioned learner factors. The results of this study show that; (1) by factor analysis, the six factors of epistemic knowledge of science could be grouped into two dimensions which reflect the nature of scientific knowledge and knowing in science, respectively; (2) there was a gender difference in the participants’ understanding of the epistemic knowledge of science; and (3) students’ interest in science learning and the time spent on science learning were positively correlated to their understanding of the epistemic knowledge of science.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)325-344
Number of pages20
JournalResearch in Science Education
Volume48
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Apr 2018

Keywords

  • Epistemic knowledge of science
  • Online contextualized test

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