Developing the test of inquiry skills: measuring the level of inquiry skills among pupils in Slovakia

ABSTRACT

Teachers can develop science literacy among pupils through Inquiry-Based Science Education. IBSE helps to evolve the inquiry skills necessary for understanding the world of science and nature. To be able to improve the level of inquiry skills systematically, we need to know the current level among pupils. For this reason, we designed a multiple-choice test that measures the level of inquiry skills among 13 to 15 years old pupils. The design of the test consisted of six steps: selection of inquiry skills, construction and administration of open-ended test, creation of a database of distractors, construction of multiple-choice test, pilot testing and application of optimised test in pedagogical research. The designed test can be considered a valid and reliable research instrument and the individual test items show a relatively high discriminating power, optimal level of difficulty and a high number of functional distractors. By analysing the most common incorrect answers, we were able to identify various difficulties pupils have, regarding the application of inquiry skills in solving items. These results will help us to design appropriate strategies for improving pupils’ inquiry skills in science education.

KEYWORDS:

• Inquiry skills
• multiple-choice test
• science literacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

We confirm that the presented research did not require any special approval from the ethics committee. According to the principles of Belmont Report, all participants participated in the research voluntarily. We obtained valid informed consent, and all participants were informed about the research process as well as the possibility to withdraw from the research. The research at schools was carried out with the permission of the school management. The results of the research have been processed with regards to the GDPR. Information about pupils and schools was strictly anonymised. We declare that our research met all the ethical, human, and legal subject requirements imposed on this type of research.

Geolocation information

Plus code: 532C + 2P Bratislava.

Data availability statement

Results of pilot testing and results of optimised test are available in dataset (Šmida et al., 2022).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Comenius University in Bratislava [grant number UK/46/2021].