Science Process Skills: are they generalisable?

Abstract

This paper discusses the conditions favouring transfer of laboratory‐based science process skills. It examines the generalisability or otherwise of these skills for students carrying out whole investigations, using a sample of 135 eighth graders in Singapore. The evidence for generalisability across different investigations is elicited in three ways: (1) pair‐wise comparison of performance across different investigations for each science process skill, using Pearson's tetrachoric correlations as the case may be; (2) agreement in ranking of performance across investigations for each of the science process skilb, using Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance, W; (3) group mean comparison across investigations for each of the science process skilb, using t‐tests.