Share Paper: Examining factors affecting students' performance in science assessment tests.

  1. Christodoulos Santziakki, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
  2. Zacharias Zacharia, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
  3. Nikos Papadouris, Pedagogical Institute of Cyprus, Cyprus
  4. Christiana Nicolaou, Pedagogical Institute of Cyprus, Cyprus
Wednesday, November 2 11:30-11:45 AM Room 2

Abstract: The aim of this study was to identify factors concerning the type and design of assessment items that might affect students’ performance when undertaking a science test. In so doing, we prepared assessment tests by using and changing science items from the pool of TIMSS released items. In this paper we focus on the role of image use. Our results revealed that the use of images that carry complementary information, on top of the provided text, or “summarize” the important information needed to answer an item, appear to affect students’ understanding and performance. Therefore, the use of an image is ...