Measuring scientific reasoning in kindergarten and elementary school: validating the Chinese version of the Science-K Inventory

Abstract

Scientific reasoning is a twenty-first century skill that is important for economic growth and social prosperity. A growing body of research documents that basic scientific reasoning skills develop much earlier than initially assumed, with many young elementary school and even kindergarten-aged children showing emergent scientific reasoning skills. Many studies on early scientific reasoning have been conducted in Western countries, and there is a lack of validated instruments that can be used in cross-cultural work. The present paper reports on the findings of a study assessing the psychometric properties of the shortened Chinese version of the Science-K(indergarten) Inventory (SC-SKI). The SC-SKI consists of 10 items that assess children’s understanding of the nature of science, as well as their experimentation and data interpretation skills. Sixty-nine 6- to 7-year-olds from urban and rural schools in the Hunan province (China) participated in the study. The results showed an acceptable reliability of the SC-SKI (McDonald’s ωt = 0.60). The ability estimates obtained for children’s scientific reasoning (average performance was 47.5% correct) were comparable to those measured in German 6-year-olds (45.1% correct), and the urban sample outperformed the rural sample, supporting the ability of the SC-SKI to detect expected performance differences in young children’s scientific reasoning. A significant correlation between scientific reasoning and language skills (r = 0.54, p < 0.05) confirms earlier findings and indicates construct validity. Taken together, the present study shows that the SC-SKI is a reliable and valid instrument that can be used to measure scientific reasoning in Chinese-speaking 6- to 7-year-olds.