International Comparative Study on Practical Activities in Science Education

Research Project

Project/Area Number	58410016
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (A)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	科学教育(含教育工学)
Research Institution	National Institute for Educational Policy Research
Principal Investigator	KOJIMA Shigeo 国立教育研究所, その他, 研究員 (30000037)
Project Period (FY)	1983 – 1985
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1985)
Budget Amount *help	¥15,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥15,500,000) Fiscal Year 1985: ¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000) Fiscal Year 1984: ¥2,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,700,000) Fiscal Year 1983: ¥11,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥11,300,000)
Keywords	Science Education / Practical Ability / Evaluation / Performance Test
Research Abstract	The instruments used on this study are the tests of process exercises, the science tests, the tests of understanding science and the questionnaires. The subjects are 346 elementary school pupils, 370 juniorhigh school students and 368 high school students selected from nine districts (Hokkai-do, Iwate, Tokyo, Aichi, Fukui, Gifu, Okayama, Kagawa and Fukuoka). The main results are as follows: 1. At the elementary school level, the items of process exercises with low scores are (1) estimation of length and weight (2) assembling an electric circuit and (5) reaction of limestone and hydrochloric acid, and presumption of the shape of fossil. At the junior-high school level, the score of estimation of length in the item (1) becomes higher than the one at the elementary school level. At the high school level the scores of the items (1) and (5) are low. 2. In comparison of the scores of process exercises at the elementary, junior-high and high school levels, the differences of many subitems of tests are 5% or more. 3. In the international comparison of process exercises on the Second International Science Study, though the score of science tests of Japan is the highest among Japan, Hungary and Singapore, the score of process exercises is the lowest. Particularly, the scores of the items about observation, measurement and construction are almost as same as the ones of the other two countries, but the scores of the items about inference, hypothesizing and drawing a conclusion are much lower than the ones of the other two countries. 4. There is a tendency that the correlation between the score of process exercises and the score of science tests becomes large as the school level advances.