Construction and Standardization of a Scientific Reasoning Test in Physics for Class-VIII Students

Abstract

Physics is a concept-based subject. To acquire the knowledge on the subject, one must possess higher-order cognitive skills. Construction and standardization of a Scientific Reasoning Test is a basic tool in understanding the cognitive ability of the students. The present study targeted to construct and standardize Scientific Reasoning test in Physics for school students studying in Class-VIII. For constructing the Scientific Reasoning Test, 50 test-items were selected from the 95 test-items after item analysis. A sample of 704 students was selected purposively from the eleven schools. The Pearson Product-Moment formula was employed to find the reliability coefficient of the test. The reliability coefficient for the English version of the test was 0.73, while it was 0.69 for the Assamese version (vernacular language). The reliability coefficient of the test was recorded as 0.83 while calculated for both the language English and Assamese (vernacular) jointly. The present study revealed that the constructed Scientific Reasoning test is quite satisfactory and can be used as an assessment tool for determining the Scientific Reasoning ability of Class-VIII students in Physics.

KEYWORDS Cognitive ability, Item analysis, Reliability coefficient, Secondary school.

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/17-10-01

Publication date: October 30th 2026