Normalization and Validation a Tool for Measuring Scientific Thinking in Iranian Students

One of the most important dimensions of thinking is scientific thinking, which can play an effective role in improving the academic conditions of students. Therefore, the purpose of this study was normalization and validation a tool for measuring scientific thinking in Iranian students.

This study in terms of purpose was applied and in terms of implementation method was descriptive from survey type. The research population was all high school students in Mashhad city in the 2020-21 academic years. The sample size based on Cochran's formula and with 10% attrition was calculated 648 people, which this number were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method. The research tool was a Liang et al scientific thinking questionnaire (2006), and the resulting data were analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis in SPSS 26 software.

The findings showed that among the 24 items of the scientific thinking questionnaire, the content validity index of all items was approved because it was higher than 0.70, and only the content validity ratio of 4 items was inappropriate because it was lower than 0.50, and these items were revised and modified. Also, the scientific thinking questionnaire had 24 items in 6 components of using from scientific methods, using from scientific theories and laws, social contexts and culture, creativity and visualization, observation and inference, and practice; So that the factor load of all items was higher than 0.60, the average extracted variance of all components was higher than 0.50, and the Cronbach and combined reliability of all components was higher than 0.70. In addition, the reliability of the total scientific thinking questionnaire was obtained with the Cronbach's alpha method 0.86 and with the combined method 0.93.

The results showed that the a tool for measuring scientific thinking in students has a good validity and experts and educational planners can use this tool to measure the level of scientific thinking of students and based on its components design and implement programs to improve and promote scientific thinking.