Students' performance in TIMSS test in Oman: Effect of cognitive and metacognitive variables and effectiveness of an inquiry-based mobile e-formative assessment package

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has been recognized globally as an important indicator for the advancement of the teaching of these two subjects. Unfortunately, the performance of Omani students in 2011 was disappointing. In science, Omani fourth-grade students scored 377 and eighth-grade students scored 420. Both scores were much lower than the TIMSS Centerpoint Scale (500). Across the globe, the highest score in grade four was 587, scored by South Korea. In grade eight, 590 was scored by Singapore. The poor Omani results require initiations and actions from different parties associated with the educational process in the country, including the research community. Therefore, there is an urgent need to investigate the cognitive and metacognitive variables which contribute to students performance in TIMSS and design proper interventions to enhance their scores. Thus, the main purpose of the current project is twofold: to investigate cognitive and metacognitive variables which might affect students performance in TIMSS-like tests and tasks and use these data to construct learning profiles; and to use data from learning profiles to design and then examine the effectiveness of an intervention package known as inquiry-based mobile e-formative assessment on students performance in a TIMSS-like test. A wide range of cognitive and metacognitive variables will be investigated in order to construct learners profiles. The main cognitive and metacognitive variables to be studied in the current project are prior knowledge, scientific process skills, critical thinking, innovative thinking, spatial ability, working memory capacity, mind wandering, metacognitive awareness, self-regulation and self-efficacy. The target population of the current project is students in grades four and eight since these are the two grades involved in TIMSS. In this project, a test bank will be developed to assimilate TIMSS tests. The validity and reliability of the questions included in this test bank will be thoroughly established. This test bank will serve as the source for designing the TIMSS-like tests used in the project. The intervention will be based on the principles of scientific inquiry since it is the core theme around which TIMSS test items are designed. The intervention will also take the constructed learners profiles into consideration. The effectiveness of the intervention will be tested by means of a quasi-experimental design involving three groups: (1) science inquiry mobile experimental group; (2) science inquiry non-mobile experimental group; and (3) control group. The purpose of involving a second experimental group is to eliminate the novelty effect resulting from asking students to do something new or different, which is the use of mobile technology in this case. There are different reasons for using mobile technology in this project. One of them is to reach new learners who use mobile technology in everyday life. Another reason is to facilitate the collection of data on cognitive and metacognitive variables while students conduct science learning tasks. In addition, students performance on each task will be analyzed for other variables such as time spent on the task, the hints they benefit from, and the different navigation routes they take to reach the answer. The collection of these data will be made possible using mobile technology. What distinguishes this project from previous ones is that it constructs students learning profiles while engaging in scientific inquiry and conducting scientific processes. Although research techniques such as think-aloud interviews , thought experimentation, and guided imagery technique help in establishing the learning profile of students' thinking processes while solving problems or performing other learning tasks, these situations are still not as authentic as real learning environments. Thus, in the current project, with the aid of mobile technology, different types of data will gathered for each learning task which students perform in a regular classroom environment. This will allow for constructing a comprehensive learning profile through which researchers will be able to establish the relationship between different variables during the performance of different learning tasks by different types of learners. In addition, learning profiles for critical tasks will be compared with those for innovative tasks to determine the similarities and differences between both types in terms of the cognitive and metacognitive abilities involved. The construction of such comprehensive learning profiles while students are performing authentic science tasks will allow different decision-makers to understand: how students interact with different types of scientific inquiry tasks; the types of cognitive and metacognitive abilities required to perform these tasks and processes and those required to perform TIMSS tests; the role of prior knowledge in performing these tasks, especially those included in TIMSS tests; the difference between students performance of critical and innovative scientific tasks within TIMSS-like tests in terms of the cognitive and metacognitive abilities involved; how learning environments should be designed in order to accelerate students successful performance of different learning tasks, especially those included in TIMSS tests; how mobile learning environments should be designed in order to expedite students learning, especially those included in TIMSS tests; and how to use these data to enhance students performance in TIMSS. In addition, this project will provide the educational field with a TIMSS-like test bank which could be used, after the conclusion of the project, in different projects related to enhancing students performance in TIMSS.