Toetsing van procesvaardigheden bij natuurwetenschappen

Tijdschrift voor Didactiek van de Beta-wetenschappen, uitgegeven door het Freudenthal Instituut, Universiteit Utrecht in de periode 1983-2014

De Bruyn, I. Tijdschrift voor Didactiek van de Beta-wetenschappen 1986 – 4(2), 107-117 Download pdf

The testing of process skills with science

In Dutch education the natural sciences are not implemented in integrated form, but as separated disciplines: biology, chemistry and physics. In this study some links and differences between the disciplines were investigated. A test of science process skills was administered to 14 year old students. The abilities included reading graphs, reading tables and judgement of experimental design. Some additional tests were given to assess the knowledge of biology, chemistry and physics. The analysis revealed no interpretable clustering of items, indicating that a scale for the abilities can not be distinguished. Furthermore the achievement of students in separate disciplines does not influence the response on process skill items. The whole test showed a close relationship to a physics test, i.e. comparable sex-bias and dependence on mathematics ability were found. However, on the level of school type a difference with physics test performance was found. The students who followed an experimental curriculum in physics (PLON) showed significant higher level of science process skills.