Developing a Science Process Skills Test for Secondary Students: Validity and Reliability Study

Science process skills are claimed to enable an individual to improve their own life visions and give a scientific view/literacy as a standard of their understanding about the nature of science. The main purpose of this study was to develop a test for measuring a valid, reliable and practical test for Science Process Skills (SPS) in secondary education at basic and integrated levels. The test was developed according to the renewed 9th and 10th and 11th grades chemistry curriculum acquisitions of "content", "chemistry-technotogy-society-environment", "communication", "attitude" "value" Participants of this study are 222 students from a vocational high school and the Anatolian school of Izmir, Turkey. The test consisted of 30 multiple-choice questions and the KR20 reliability coefficient of this test was calculated as 0.83. The test consisted of sub-dimensions as, observing, classifying, measuring, communicating, inferring, predicting, formulating hypotheses, identifying variables, designing investigations, acquiring data, organizing data, and interpreting it. The test is compatible with a model which consists of observing, measuring, acquiring data, formulating problems, designing investigations, organizing data, interpreting factors of literature. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis supported validity and reliability of the test.