A Development of the Biological Literacy Test for Grade 10 Students

Abstract

This research aims to 1) to construct the test, 2) to evaluate its quality, and 3) to assess the biological literacy of the students. The sample group consisted of 730 Grade 10 students from schools under the Office of the Basic Education Commission. The research instrument was a situational essay-type biological literacy test with content aligned to core biological literacy concepts. The test's quality was analyzed using Classical Test Theory and the students' biological literacy was assessed using a cutoff score method. The findings revealed that 1) The developed test is a situational essay-type test with a five-level scoring rubric (0-4 points) 2) The analysis using Classical Test Theory showed that 20 test items had a validity (IOC) ranging from 0.60 to 1.00. The items that passed the criteria had a difficulty (p) of 0.41-0.58, a discriminating power (r) of 0.42-0.54, and a reliability coefficient of 0.85. The analysis using Item Response Theory (IRT) found that the test items had a slope parameter (a) of 1.23-3.77 and a difficulty step parameter (b) of -1.69 to 2.11. The test provided the most information at a competency level of 1.2, with a value of 33.39 and a standard error of 0.17 and 3) The students' biological literacy levels were: Nominal (13.33%), Functional (55.00%), Structural (29.67%), and Multidimensional (2.00%).