Analysis Based on the Three Objective Educational Domains for Final Summative Secondary Examinations of Science Subject (Chemistry, Physics, and Biology)

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the representation of the areas of educational objectives (cognitive, psychomotor, and emotional) measured by the science, chemistry, physics, and biology (2018-2019) examination questions in the State of Kuwait (objective, categorical) and the availability of science operations. Content analysis was used as a method to analyze the final examinations in the lens of the three educational objectives domains. The results of the study showed that the number of questions of the science subjects (chemistry, physics, and biology) for the second semester of the academic year 2018-2019 was 136 questions as 46, 48, and 42and that the average of all questions focused on questions related to lower cognitive levels. The study concluded with a set of recommendations to develop the process of final examinations for secondary schools and to rethink about the process of evaluating students with science concepts rather than limiting the subjects to sets of information from textbooks.

A systematic review of STEM education research in the GCC countries: trends, gaps and barriers

“…Looking at the factors that hinder STEM education (see Table 3), most of the studies included school-level factors (n = 10, 55.6%), such as teachers' perceptions of integrated STEM education (Aldahmash et al, 2019;Elayyan & Al-Shizawi, 2019;El-Deghaidy et al, 2017;Madani & Forawi, 2019), STEM curriculum and pedagogy (Awwad & Ayesh, 2013;Madani, 2020;Murphy et al, 2018), and STEM assessment (Alhashem & Agha, 2020). Second in line of the research focus are studies on environmental factors (n = 7, 38.92%), mostly related to the impact of stereotypes (Aswad et al, 2011;Forgasz et al, 2014;Pasha-Zaidi & Afari, 2016), the role of family members (Aswad et al, 2011) and family income (Khan & Rodrigues, 2017).…”

“…Because outdated teaching methods and non-qualified teachers/faculty undermine the quality of education (Wang et al, 2020), the literature recommends adding engineering design steps to the science curricula (Elayyan & Al-Shizawi, 2019). There seems to be a need to rethink the process of student teaching and assessment using science concepts rather than limiting instruction to the transmission of information from textbooks (Alhashem & Agha, 2020). In addition, enhancing dialogue between teachers of different STEM subjects is key to establishing a STEM culture, as Madani (2020) notes.…”

Problem solving in science technology and society learning improving junior high school students' scientific attitudes and process skills

“…The primary purpose of the technology and community science approach (STS) is to produce students who have scientific knowledge and attitudes to make decisions regarding society's problems (Servant-Miklos 2019). The application of the science-technology approach and society is based on three things: There are five learning domains contained therein, namely (1) the cognitive domain, (2) the affective domain, (3) the science process domain, (4) the creativity domain, and (5) the relationship and application domains (Alhashem & Agha, 2020) The new education paradigm emphasizes students as active and creative humans who can always learn and develop following the times (Choi et al, 2019). The teacher no longer plays the highest authority in learning but as a facilitator and motivator who guides students to be more active in learning (Gordon 2020).…”