This document describes the development of an instrument to measure 21st century skills among Malaysian secondary school students in biology. The researchers identified five key components of 21st century skills - digital age literacy, inventive thinking, effective communication, high productivity, and spiritual values. They developed 82 questionnaire items measuring these components and field tested them with 433 students. Analysis using the Rasch model showed the instrument had very good reliability. However, 11 items were identified as misfit and need revision. The developed instrument will allow assessment of students' existing 21st century skills and help teachers improve instruction to better develop these important skills.

1. INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT FOR 21ST SKILLS IN BIOLOGY World Conferences of Educational Sciences (WCES) 2011 PRESENTING BY: PM. DR. KAMISAH OSMAN AUTHOR: NURAZIDAWATI BINTI MOHAMAD ARSAD KAMISAH OSMAN TUAN MASTURA TUAN SOH UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

2. INTRODUCTION According to the Curriculum Development Centre (2006), the main aim of Biology subject is to provide students with the skills and knowledge in Science and Technology by enabling them to solve problems and make decisions in daily life based on scientific attitudes and moral values. In terms of teaching and learning approaches such as questioning, constructivism, contextual learning and mastery learning, all have features to produce students with 21st century skills. However, the teaching and learning methods are not fully implemented and resulted in less of integration of 21st century skills especially for science students. 2 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

3. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY To develop a valid and reliable instrument of 21st century skill towards Biology among Malaysian secondary school students Empirical evidence for reliability and validity item using Rasch Model analysis 3 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

4. DEVELOPING ITEM FOR 21ST CENTURY SKILLS TOWARDS BIOLOGY Three stage process Identification of component scale Developing and writing items’ component Field testing, validity and reliability analysis 4 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

5. IDENTIFICATION OF COMPONENT SCALE Information from enGauge 21st century skills (NCREL & Metiri Group, 2003) was used as the main source. Duscussion and consideration in focus group was done in identifying the key components (Soh et al., 2010) Four key components were identified (i) digital age literacy, (ii) inventive thinking, (iii) effective communication, and(iii) high productivity An additional fifth component is spiritual value 5 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

6. DEVELOPING AND WRITING ITEMS’ COMPONENTS Writing and developing items was done based on table 1 A set of questionnaire with a total of 82 items was develop Panellists evaluate the instrument to get face and content validity. 6 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

7. FIELD TESTING, VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY ANALYSIS Quantitative approach using survey method A questionnaire with 5 point agreement of Likert-type response was distributed to 433 science students. Data collected were analysed via Winstep’s software 3.69.1.11 7 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

8. RELIABILITY OF INSTRUMENT – RASCH MEASUREMENT MODEL Table 2: Reliability of item construct 8 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

9. CONT… Item reliability index was very good since it is closed to 1.00 (Wright, B.D. & Master, G.N., 1982) The items separation index shown in the data was accepted by Linacre (2007) and Bond, T.G. & Fox, C.M., (2007) which was more than 2.0. Separation person for spiritual value construct was less than the accepted limit which is represented in less variation and consistency of respondents. It can be modified by distributing the instruments to respondents based on variation in their demographic profile. 9 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

10. IDENTIFICATION OF THE POLARITY AND THE ITEM FIT IN MEASURING THE 21ST CENTURY SKILLS CONSTRUCT Table 3: Reliability of item construct 10 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

11. CONT… The implementation of the advanced analysis was to identify misfit items with the Rasch measurement model by recognised fit and polarity of the instrument. Polarity item analysis or point-measure correlation (PTMEA CORR) is an indicator used to indicate the movement of the item in one direction in the meaning of measured construct Construct in the instrument had a positive point measured correlation (PTMEA CORR) However, based on this analysis, item a24 needed to be distinct from the instrument since it had the lowest PTMEA CORR. 11 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

12. CONT… Table 4: Misfit Item 12 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

13. CONT… According Bond and Fox (2007), the fit item acceptance range for Likert scale is 0.6 logits to 1.4 logits. If the value is more than 1.4, the item is not homogeneous with other items in the same construct measurement scale. if the item is lower than 0.6, the item indicate redundancy with other items. Analysis findings from the Table 4 indicated 11 misfit items in the instrument 13 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

14. CONCLUSION The development of an instrument to measure the integration of 21st century skills among students in Biology subject will examine the level of existing skills among students. Teachers, stakeholders and policy makers will be able to identify the weaknesses and deficiencies and needs of students. Provide ideas for teachers to become more creative and innovative in modifying their teaching methods to meet the requirements of the 21st century 14 UniversitiKebangsaan Malaysia

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