Middle school students’ science epistemic beliefs – implications for measurement

Nations are facing unprecedented challenges, such as climate change, that require epistemic knowledge associated with science literacy (science epistemic beliefs- SEBs). We interviewed 45 Australian middle school (12-14-year-olds) students using a new interview protocol adapted from Barzilai and Weinstocks’ Epistemic Thinking Assessment. We posed a range of forced-choice and open-ended interview questions to explore a science topic about the health of frogs. Students were more likely to display evaluativist SEBs when they could choose a response within forced choice items. However, they were more likely to verbalise multiplist SEBs in their responses to the open-ended questions. It may be important to include multiple response types in surveys and interviews to ensure that students’ SEBs are captured in a nuanced way