This study was to analyze the effects of parental educational level (P.EDU), science attitude (ATT), and valuing science (VAL) on science performance after establishing gender invariance in a representative sample of the Taiwanese eighth grade population drawn from the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The official TIMSS five plausible values in scoring science performance were used as outcome variables, while independent variables were collected from student questionnaires. The effects of P.EDU, ATT, and VAL on science performance were estimated by a multigroup structural equation model. Results from multi-group analysis supported gender invariance. After establishing gender invariance, a considerable effect was detected between P.EDU and Taiwanese eighth grade science performance that was indirectly related through ATT and VAL with the direct effects being stronger than the indirect effects, and the indirect effects of ATT being stronger than VAL in both genders. Prospective impediments to multigroup invariance are suggested to be utilized when comparing different groups.

This study was conducted to understand the effect of student-, classroom-, and school-level factors on the science performance of 8th-grade Taiwanese students in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011 by using multilevel analysis. A total of 5,042 students from 153 classrooms of 150 schools participated in the TIMSS 2011 study, in which they were required to complete questionnaires. A 3-level multilevel analysis was used to assess the influence of factors at 3 levels on the science performance of 8th-grade Taiwanese students. The results showed that the provision of education resources at home, teachers' level of education, and school climate were the strongest predictor of science performance at the student, classroom, and school level, respectively. It was concluded that the science performance of 8th-grade Taiwanese students is driven largely by individual factors. Classroom-level factors accounted for a smaller proportion of the total variance in science performance than did schoollevel factors.

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Ocean sustainability and resource use are emphasized globally. The primary goal of ocean preservation is to enhance citizens’ ocean literacy. In this study, cluster sampling was conducted on students from seven public middle schools in Taiwan to investigate their use of ocean literacy concept words, propositional sentences, and knowledge sources. Qualitative analysis, descriptive statistics, and one-way analysis of variance were conducted on 496 valid questionnaires. The middle school students exhibited an accuracy rate of 63% for ocean literacy sentence-making, which indicated a basic level of performance. The students commonly used terms such as “ocean,” “Atlantic Ocean,” and “tsunami.” Students had common misconceptions when using the terms “sea level rising,” “Kuroshio current,” and “tsunami.” In addition, students who were female, in a higher grade, and who attended a coastal school had higher ocean literacy scores. The students’ primary sources of ocean literacy knowledge were museums and television. Through an analysis students’ use of ocean concept words and misconceptions, the aim of this study was to enhance the implementation efficiency of marine education to cultivate students’ ocean literacy.