Issue: Difficulty-generating aspects of tasks concerning scientific inquiry with regard to the low-performing stage

Knowledge of scientific experimental methods and its application are mentioned to be among the central aspects students should be taught  in science lessons (KMK, 2004). Previously conducted studies, focusing on students experimental skills, have revealed deficits in younger children’s conceptions of the function and logic of scientific experiments (Hübinger 2007, Hammann 2006, Klahr & Dunbar 2000, Bullock 1993).

Up till now, different degrees of achievement are not measurable adequately in groups of low-performing students (grade 5) only. A reason for this is probably the lack of tasks of very low item difficulty in present studies.

Therefore, the study’s main aim is to develop and to validate a paper-pencil-test on students’ experimental skills that is applicable to 5th graders (10- to 11-year-old students) and especially to the low-performers of this group. Additionally, differences in achievement between students from different kind of German schools (German ‘Hauptschueler’ and German ‘Gymnasiasten’) are to be investigated in this study. Therefore, a total of 140 items, all related to different levels of competence, are used to categorize learners according to their abilities.

A slightly reduced and adapted version of a three-dimensional model of competence, namely the ESNaS model (Walpuski et al. 2008), is developed and used for item construction. In addition to the model’s original dimensions, complexity and cognitive processes, a dimension called previous knowledge is introduced in this study. To investigate the influence of these factors on task difficulty is another major aim of the study.

Termtime

• 2007-2010

Funding

• Scholarship DFG Research Training Group “Teaching and Learning of Science”, Essen

Supervisors

• Elke Sumfleth & Maik Walpuski

Dissertation

• Susanne Mannel