Validity of science items in the Student Selection Test in Turkey

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, Matematik ve Fen Bilimleri Eğitimi Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2008

Öğrenci: NAZLI UYGUN

Danışman: SEMRA SUNGUR

Özet:

This thesis presents content-related and construct-related validity evidence for science sub-tests within Student Selection Test (SST) in Turkey via underlying the content, cognitive processes, item characteristics, factorial structure, and group differences based on high school type. A total number of 126,245 students were present in the research from six type of school in the data of SST 2006. Reliability Analysis, Item Analysis, Principle Component Analysis (PCA) and one-way ANOVA have been carried out to evaluate the content-related and construct-related evidence of validity of SST. SPSS and ITEMAN programs were used to conduct the above-mentioned analyses. According to the results of content analysis, science items in the SST 2006 found to be measuring various cognitive processes under knowledge, understanding and problem solving cognitive domains. Those items loaded under three factors according to PCA findings which were measuring very close dimensions. Moreover, a threat to validity was detected via one-way ANOVA due to significant mean difference across high school types.