An Anlysis of Complex.docVIP

An Analysis of Complex Multiple-Choice Science--Technology--Society Items: Methodological Development and Preliminary Results pain JOS ′E-ANTONIO ACEVEDO-D′IAZA′ NGEL VA′ ZQUEZ-ALONSO Facultad de Educaci′on, Universidad de las Islas Baleares, Edificio Guillem Cifre de Colonya, Carretera de Valldemossa, km. 7.5, 07122-Palma de Mallorca, Spain MAR′IA-ANTONIA MANASSERO-MAS Departamento de Psicolog′?a, Universidad de las Islas Baleares, Edificio Guillem Cifre de Colonya, Carretera de Valldemossa, km. 7.5, 07122-Palma de Mallorca, S Inspecci′on de Educaci′on, Consejer′?a de Educaci′on de la Junta de Andaluc′?a, Delegaci′on Provincial de Huelva, C/Moz′arabes, 8, 21002 Huelva, Spain Received 3 March 2005; revised 5 September 2005; accepted 13 September 2005 DOI 10.1002/sce.20134 Published online 6 April 2006 in Wiley InterScience (). ABSTRACT: The scarce attention to the assessment and evaluation in science education research has been especiallyharmful for eachingscience–technology–society (STS) issues,due to the dialectical, tentative, value-laden, and polemic nature of most STS topics. Thispaper tackles the methodological difficulties of the instruments that monitor views relatedto STS topics and rationalizes a quantitative methodology and an analysis technique to improvethe utility of an empirically developed multiple-choice item pool, the Questionnaire ofCorrespondence to: A′ ngel Va′zquez-Alonso; e-mail: angel.vazquez@uib.esC _2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.682 VA′ ZQUEZ-ALONSO ET AL.Opinions on STS. This methodology embraces an item-scaling psychometrics based on thejudgments by a panel of experts, a multiple response model, a scoring system, and the dataanalysis. The methodology finally produces normalized attitudinal indices that representthe respondent’s reasoned beliefs toward STS statements, the respondent’s position on anitem that comprises several statements, or the respondent’s position on an entire STS topicthat encompasses a set of items. Some preliminary resu