Development and Validation of a STEM Competencies Assessment Framework
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Development and Validation of a STEM Competencies Assessment Framework Serkan Arikan 1
& Emine
Erktin 1 & Melek Pesen 1
Received: 13 December 2019 / Accepted: 28 September 2020/ # Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan 2020
Abstract The aim of this study is to construct a STEM competencies assessment framework and provide validity evidence by empirically testing its structure. Common interdisciplinary assessment frameworks for STEM seem to be scarce in the literature. Many studies use students’ mathematics or science scores obtained from large-scale assessments or exams to assess STEM achievement. In the current framework, the multidimensional and integrated structure of the STEM competencies was addressed by taking into account science, technology, engineering, and mathematics domains. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-related problems that required mathematical calculations were used as a medium to develop an assessment tool for this framework. A test was developed based on this assessment framework and items were calibrated using the item response theory. We tested the structure of the framework through confirmatory factor analysis by collecting data from 8th grade students. The empirical findings supported the structure of the STEM assessment framework. Keywords Confirmatory factor analysis . Item mapping . Item response theory . STEM
assessment framework
Introduction Significance of STEM Education Concerns about staying competitive in a global economy have led educators and policy makers to act in advancing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) competencies (Kelly & Knowles, 2016). Being successful in STEM fields has been associated with being competitive in the labor market and having economic
* Serkan Arikan [email protected]
1
Faculty of Education, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
S. Arikan et al.
stability and superiority (Bicer, Capraro, & Capraro, 2017; National Science and Technology Council, 2011; National Research Council, 2005, 2011). STEM education has become a popular field across the globe and has likewise become the focus of an increasing number of teachers, administrators, policy makers, and researchers all around the world (Bicer et al., 2017; Brown, Brown, Reardon, & Merrill, 2011). This popularity is interrelated with the urgency to better educate students in STEM fields and the increasingly widespread acknowledgement of the importance of the role of STEM education in the technology, health, and production sectors as well as in the economy generally (Broggy, O’Reilly & Erduran, 2017). STEM education originates from an interdisciplinary approach of teaching and learning where science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, which are in fact inseparable by nature and have unified structures in their historical development, overlap with each other and are integrated (Broggy et al., 2017). To illustrate, mathematics is crucial for the understanding of scientific concepts. Likewise, scientific thinking and scientific concepts form
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