ArticleCBE life sciences education2012
Developing a Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS): measuring undergraduates' evaluation of scientific information and arguments.
Article in CBE life sciences education, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 62 papers.
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Who cites it
62 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Using a flipped classroom teaching and learning approach to promote scientific literacy skill development and retention.FEBS open bio · 2025Article
- Using a 'Students as Partners' model to develop an authentic assessment promoting employability skills in undergraduate life science education.FEBS open bio · 2025Article
- A Novel Practical Session to Teach Concepts of Allometric Scaling of Brain Structures to Undergraduate Students Using Vertebrate Brains.Journal of undergraduate neuroscience education : JUNE : a publication of FUN, Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Belief updating when confronted with scientific evidence: Examining the role of trust in science.Public understanding of science (Bristol, England) · 2024Article
- Supporting Student Competencies in Graph Reading, Interpretation, Construction, and Evaluation.CBE life sciences education · 2024Article
- Teaching the Nature of Science Improves Scientific Literacy Among Students Not Majoring in STEM.Journal of undergraduate neuroscience education : JUNE : a publication of FUN, Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience · 2024Article
- A card-sorting tool to measure expert versus novice thinking in scientific research.CBE life sciences education · 2023Article
- Reading Primary Scientific Literature: Approaches for Teaching Students in the Undergraduate STEM Classroom.CBE life sciences education · 2023Review
- Synthesizing Research Narratives to Reveal the Big Picture: a CREATE(S) Intervention Modified for Journal Club Improves Undergraduate Science Literacy.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2023Article
- Preprint Peer Review Enhances Undergraduate Biology Students' Disciplinary Literacy and Sense of Belonging in STEM.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2023Article
- Comparing study features is easy but identifying next steps is hard: Evaluating critical thinking through the Biology Lab Inventory of Critical Thinking in Ecology.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Discussion of Annotated Research Articles Results in Increases in Scientific Literacy within a Cell Biology Course.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2023Article
- Primary Scientific Literature Is Not Just for Students and Academics: a Study of Primary Source Modalities and Predictors of Learning across Adulthood.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2023Article
- Scaffolding STEM Literacy Assignments To Build Greater Competence in Microbiology Courses.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2023Article
- An Equity-Focused Redesign of an Introductory Organismal Biology Lab Course To Develop Foundational Scientific Practices.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2023Article
- Remote and in-person research education for people with Parkinson's disease and their care partners.Families, systems & health : the journal of collaborative family healthcare · 2023Article
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2 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Abstract
Life sciences faculty agree that developing scientific literacy is an integral part of undergraduate education and report that they teach these skills. However, few measures of scientific literacy are available to assess students' proficiency in using scientific literacy skills to solve scenarios in and beyond the undergraduate biology classroom. In this paper, we describe the development, validation, and testing of the Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS) in five general education biology classes at three undergraduate institutions. The test measures skills related to major aspects of scientific literacy: recognizing and analyzing the use of methods of inquiry that lead to scientific knowledge and the ability to organize, analyze, and interpret quantitative data and scientific information. Measures of validity included correspondence between items and scientific literacy goals of the National Research Council and Project 2061, findings from a survey of biology faculty, expert biology educator reviews, student interviews, and statistical analyses. Classroom testing contexts varied both in terms of student demographics and pedagogical approaches. We propose that biology instructors can use the TOSLS to evaluate their students' proficiencies in using scientific literacy skills and to document the impacts of curricular reform on students' scientific literacy.
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