A Study of Grade 7 Students’ Ability to Construct Scientific Explanations on Weather and Climate: A Case Study in Ratchaburi Province

Abstract

This research aimed to explore the ability to construct scientific explanations of grade 7 students on the topic of Weather and Climate. The samples comprised 200 grade 7 students under the Office of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC) in Ratchaburi Province during the 2024 academic year using purposive sampling, focusing on students who had already studied this topic. This study employed an exploratory research methodology. The research instrument was an extended-response subjective test comprising three items. The index of congruency among items ranged from 0.67 to 1.00. The appropriateness of the items mean scores was 4.67 – 5.00 at the highest level. The difficulty indices ranged from 0.49 to 0.66, the discrimination indices ranged from 0.40 to 0.63, and the reliability with Cronbach’s alpha was 0.72. The appropriateness of the scoring criteria was between 4.33 – 5.00 at high to the highest levels. Data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The results showed that the overall students’ ability to construct scientific explanations was at the need improvement level (M = 5.36, S.D. = 2.94). Students scored highest in the claim component (M = 3.14, S.D. = 1.47), which was at a moderate level, followed by the evidence component (M = 1.80, S.D. = 1.31) and the reasoning component (M = 0.42, S.D. = 0.81), both of which were at the need improvement level. When examining the levels of ability and student responses, it was found that students with the same overall level of scientific explanation ability demonstrated varying levels of proficiency across components. Most students still struggled with providing appropriate evidence and reasoning, which should be further developed and supported