Putica Katarina B
Innovative Centre of the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Belgrade, Studentski trg 12-16, 11000 Belgrade, Republic of Serbia.
Res Sci Educ. 2023;53(3):651-668. doi: 10.1007/s11165-022-10075-5. Epub 2022 Oct 17.
Previous studies noted the scantiness of diagnostic instruments for the assessment of students' understanding of fundamental biochemistry concepts. Consequently, within this study, a four-tier test for the examination of secondary school students' conceptual understanding of amino acids, proteins, and enzymes has been developed. Items in the test consist of the answer tier, the reason tier, and a confidence rating for each of these tiers. Following the three-phase development process, the final version of the test, comprising eight items, was administered to 123 students in the main study. The internal consistency of both cognitive scores and confidence ratings proved to be adequate (Cronbach's alpha values were 0.76 and 0.87, respectively) and the test-retest reliability was also satisfactory (Pearson's value was 0.74 for the cognitive scores and 0.88 for the confidence ratings). If the correct responses to both the answer and the reason tier of items are considered, the mean score on the test was 3 out of 8 (38%). The students were more confident when producing the correct compared to the wrong answers but, overall, their confidence was not high (3.65 out of 6). Furthermore, the confidence in the incorrect answers that were provided (3.52 out of 6) indicates the presence of alternative conceptions. Such results show that the content regarding amino acids, proteins, and enzymes is conceptually challenging for the students. Therefore, the test can help secondary school teachers to uncover the students' conceptual difficulties related to this content and develop effective strategies for their remediation and prevention.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11165-022-10075-5.
以往的研究指出，用于评估学生对基础生物化学概念理解的诊断工具匮乏。因此，在本研究中，开发了一种用于考查中学生对氨基酸、蛋白质和酶的概念理解的四层测试。测试项目包括答案层、理由层以及对每层的信心评级。经过三个阶段的开发过程，最终版本的测试包含8个项目，并在主要研究中对123名学生进行了测试。认知分数和信心评级的内部一致性均足够（克朗巴哈系数值分别为0.76和0.87），重测信度也令人满意（认知分数的皮尔逊相关系数值为0.74，信心评级为0.88）。如果考虑项目答案层和理由层的正确回答，测试的平均分数为8分中的3分（38%）。与给出错误答案时相比，学生给出正确答案时更有信心，但总体而言，他们的信心并不高（满分6分，得3.65分）。此外，对所给出的错误答案的信心（满分6分，得3.52分）表明存在替代概念。这些结果表明，氨基酸、蛋白质和酶的相关内容对学生来说在概念上具有挑战性。因此，该测试可以帮助中学教师发现学生与该内容相关的概念性困难，并制定有效的补救和预防策略。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s11165-022-10075-5获取的补充材料。
