The development of a content-influenced process skills instrument for general biology

Since the mid 1960's, a major goal in biology instruction has been the teaching of process skills. Many process skills studies have been done and several process skills tests exist, but these studies and tests all target students in grades 7 through 12. The purpose of this study was to develop a biological process skills test for use in college level freshman biology classes. The study was conducted in two phases. Phase I was the development of the process skills test. Phase II of the study was to administer the test and determine student acquisition of process skills, and to determine whether any relationship existed between acquisition of process skills, student attitudes toward science, and student learning styles.;Testing was implemented with a sample of 135 students enrolled in general biology in one southeastern university. The process skills test and the attitudes toward science test were administered as pretests; and posttests. The learning styles test was administered as a pretest. Data analysis included t-tests for dependent samples, multiple regression analyses, and an item analysis of the process skills test that concentrated on item difficulty, discriminating power, and distractor spread.;Item analysis of the process skills test revealed some questions that were too difficult, and some questions that had problems with distractors. The majority of the test questions were found to be acceptable. The t-tests for dependent samples pies showed a significant increase in process skills mean test scores from pretest to posttest, and a significant improvement in student attitudes toward science mean test scores from pretest to posttest. The multiple regression analyses revealed no significant relationship between process skills, and student attitudes toward science, and student learning style.;Recommendations include a review of the process skills test and revision of those items that are in question. The study should be continued with a larger sample size and be conducted over a longer time period. Additional research is needed to conclusively determine whether process skills and student attitudes toward science are independent.