This study provides a partial-credit scoring (PCS) approach to awarding students' performance on multiple-choice items in science education. The approach is built on "fundamental ideas," the critical pieces of students' understanding and knowledge to solve science problems. We link each option of the items to several specific fundamental…

The research presented in this dissertation describes a series of studies characterizing and assessing undergraduate chemistry students' knowledge related to the epistemic nature of scientific models and modeling. Engaging in authentic scientific practices, for instance, developing and using scientific models, has been identified as an important…

In second language listening assessment and pedagogy, practitioners hold different views on whether to repeat a listening text in contexts where inferences about listening ability are to be drawn from task performance. To address this issue, we investigated the effects of repeating the listening text (double play) on listener performance,…

The extent to which L2 television is viewed by foreign language learners will depend on the degree to which it is understood. The addition of captions has been shown to support comprehension (e.g., Birulés-Muntané & Soto-Faraco, 2016; Montero-Perez, Peters, & Desmet, 2014), especially when proficiency is low (e.g., Lavaur & Bairstow,…

This dissertation investigates the voluntary usage of clickers to answer in class multiple-choice questions in general chemistry courses and its effect on student performance. The first study explored the demographic composition of two sequential introductory level chemistry courses over six terms. No difference in voluntary usage of the clicker…

The recent integration of visual capabilities into Large Language Models (LLMs) has the potential to play a pivotal role in science and technology education, where visual elements such as diagrams, charts, and tables are commonly used to improve the learning experience. This study investigates the performance of ChatGPT-4 Vision, OpenAI's most…

Online education, while not a new phenomenon, underwent a monumental shift during the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing educators and students alike into the uncharted waters of full-time digital learning. With this shift came renewed concerns about the integrity of online assessments. Amidst a landscape rapidly being reshaped by online exam/homework…

Developing tools to identify students' misconceptions about basic biology concepts is necessary. Therefore, a two-tier diagnostic test was developed to determine such misconceptions in primary school (3rd-4th Grade) students. The test content includes two-tiered multiple-choice questions addressing common misconceptions found in the literature on…

Trigonometry is an important part of secondary school mathematics, but it is usually challenging for students to understand and learn. Since trigonometry is learned and used at a university level in many fields, like physics or geodesy, it is important to have an insight into students' trigonometry knowledge before the beginning of the university…

An undergraduate online course on Applied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology was developed through different formats of case study that included lecture, class discussion, small-groups discussion, and individual work. Cases covering health, biotechnology, agriculture, and other issues were developed or adapted from the literature to reach the…

Restrictions and challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic challenged higher education institutions to innovate to keep reaching teaching and learning goals. In South Africa, existing social inequalities were exacerbated by the pandemic restrictions and many students faced severe challenges in terms of access and support to aid in their…

The statement stated in a multiple-choice question can be developed regarding two types of sentences: Interruptive (periodic) and cumulative (or loose). This study deals with different kinds of stems in designing multiple-choice (MC) items. To fill the existing gap in the literature, two groups of teacher students passing general English courses…

Tests of statistical significance often play a decisive role in establishing the empirical warrant of evidence-based research in education. The results from pattern-based assessment items, as introduced in this paper, are categorical and multimodal and do not immediately support the use of measures of central tendency as typically related to…

This study quantified the orthographic knowledge (i.e., knowledge of spelling conventions) of school speech-language pathologists (SLPs). On average, SLPs (N = 48) answered 65% of the questions correctly on a measure of orthographic knowledge. SLPs need better preparation in written language structure to support reading acquisition in children…

A new diagnostic instrument, the Conceptual Survey on Wave Optics (CSWO), was developed and validated on 224 high school students (aged 18-19 years) in Croatia. The process of test construction, which included the testing of 61 items on the total of 712 students is presented. The final version of the test consists of 26 multiple-choice items which…