NSSE faculty and staff attend the 16th Conference of the European Science Education Research Association

From 25 to 29 August 2025, various faculty and staff from the Natural Sciences and Science Education Academic Department attended the 16th Conference of the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Their presentation titled, “Design and Qualitative Validation of a Student Survey Instrument for Measuring the 3C’s of STEM Learning Outcomes” reports on the first stage of a multi-stage and multi-year study to design evaluation instruments for measuring students’ STEM learning outcomes—namely, ‘curiosity’, ‘creativity’, and ‘be the change’—across diverse STEM programs in Singapore secondary schools.

They shared on the design process involving a comprehensive literature review of the three constructs, followed by student interviews to elicit their interpretation of the survey items with the intent to ensure validity based on the evidence collected from students’ internal processing of the items. These processes are critical precursors to the larger-scale quantitative validation after the survey items are ascertained to be aligned, revised, or deleted in the final student survey instrument.

Their presentation also shared details about the design processes, findings from the student interviews, and the student survey instrument before administering it to a larger student population to check for validity using quantitative measures. The presentation was of interest to the audience interested in evaluating students’ STEM learning outcomes and in STEM survey instrument design and validation.