Scientific literacy assessment instruments: a systematic literature review

Abstract

The study aimed to analyze scientific literacy assessment instruments. In this sense, a systematic literature review was carried out in the B-On, SciELO, Scholar Google, and RCAAP databases to identify studies using scientific literacy assessment instruments. The selection criteria included articles published between 1990 and 2020 in Portuguese, English, or Spanish, which developed and/or used scientific literacy assessment instruments. Articles that did not address scientific literacy in the title or abstract did not cite instruments and results of assessing students' scientific literacy, reviews, case studies, and articles that assessed specific subjects or subjects were excluded. Thirteen scientific literacy assessment instruments were identified. Most of the studies were conducted in Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States, predominating with Secondary School students. Higher Education students were the ones with the most positive results. The most evaluated dimensions of scientific literacy were related to different scientific literacy skills. The respondents’ classifications were obtained through the descriptive frequencies of responses to the items, with no standardization in the categorization processes of the results. Our findings led us to conclude that caution is required when comparing the results of the studies, since many instruments were applied at educational levels and in contexts different from those for which they were developed.