A Test Development Study for Evaluation of Preschool Children's Scientific Process Skills

The aim of this study is to develop valid and reliable instrument to measure children’s scientific process skills. The study group consisted of 212 preschool kids from four different preschool. In the test development process four steps were followed which were writing test items, pilot study, construct validity, reliability and item difficulty and discrimination analysis. In the first step, 20 items related to scientific process skills appropriate for preschool education program were prepared and applied to the sample in the first pilot study. After that; 4 items were eliminated considering item difficulty and discrimination index values. The prepared test was presented to the experts for reviewing process. Final version of the test was included 12 multiple test questions, 3 open ended questions and a performance based question which supported with pictures to make questions more understandable. The validity, reliability and item analysis of the test were calculated after the second pilot study. Hypothesis test technique was applied to test the construct validity of the test. Kuder Richardson20 (KR-20) and Cronbach Alpha reliability were used to test the reliability of the items’ internal consistenc