A new scoring procedure for the Views on Science‐Technology‐Society instrument

Abstract

With the rise of Science‐Technology‐Society (STS) within the K‐16 science curriculum, helping students develop an understanding of the nature of science and technology, and their interactions in society, has become a goal of science instruction. Use of instrumentation with ‘empirically developed’ multiple‐choice items, such as the Views on Science‐‐Technology‐Society (VOSTS), has been proposed as a means for overcoming the ‘immaculate perception’ difficulty in instruments used in the past to assess the epistemology and sociology of science. However, as originally developed and implemented, the VOSTS did not lend itself to test‐‐retest comparisons and hypothesis testing using inferential statistical procedures. This paper describes the development of a scoring procedure that would allow for such comparisons, and the subsequent refinement of the scoring through a re‐analysis of VOSTS data from the initial application. If limitations associated with VOSTS item selection and categorization of VOSTS multiple‐choices within the scoring scheme are attended to, the scoring procedure opens the possibility of applying inferential statistics to VOSTS data.

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