Developing a Pool of Test-items to Assess Student Understanding of the History of Science

The nature of science, history of science and philosophy of science have become more and more important in modern society, with an emphasis on `science literacy` and `science for all`. In this study, a pool of test-items has been developed in Korean to assess student understanding of the history of science. The Items were based on chapter 10, Historical Perspective , in Benchmarks for Science Literacy (1993) published by AAAS. Its target grades are from 6th to 12th and the pool consists of 576 test-items. Reliability and validity were tested and item analysis was performed. The developed test-items can be customized by reconstruction or modification according to the situation, and are able to contribute to science education for establishing science literacy.