Exploring Epistemological Trends in Students’ Understanding of Science from the Perspective of Large-Scale Studies

Table 5

Students’ performances in terms of mean of percentage of correctness related to items categorized into the emphasis of correct explanation.

Item	Year	OECD	Den	Swe	Fin
	2000	50.60	50.10	58.00	67.40
131Q2	2003	46.41	45.22	53.16	67.20
	2006	46.24	44.36	52.07	65.50
Diff		−4.36*	−5.74*	−5.93*	−1.90
	2000	40.30	43.20	35.90	53.80
213Q1	2003	41.98	47.18	42.59	59.25
	2006	47.86	50.54	48.51	67.88
Diff		+7.56 *	+7.34 *	+12.61 *	+14.08 *
	2000	75.90	68.60	81.80	90.40
213Q2	2003	76.22	72.36	80.37	91.66
	2006	79.37	75.91	83.99	94.93
Diff		+3.47	+7.31 *	—	+4.53 *
	2003	35.76	30.19	40.15	41.29
269Q4	2006	34.11	35.91	38.70	33.58
	2009	33.03	41.93	37.99	34.95
Diff		−1.73	+11.74 *	−2.16*	—
256Q1	2000	88.30	86.20	87.20	89.50
	2003	87.12	84.89	84.63	91.43
	2006	87.75	87.25	85.84	92.48
	2009	88.57	89.11	87.24	94.20
Diff		—	—	—	+4.70 *
	2003	58.33	57.25	64.48	71.80
326Q1	2006	59.01	53.34	60.66	73.51
	2009	58.59	52.64	61.12	70.17
Diff		—	−4.61*	—	—
	2003	62.65	66.60	64.52	79.98
326Q2	2006	63.74	66.63	65.98	82.62
	2009	63.89	67.97	62.10	78.28
Diff		+1.24	+1.37	—	—
	2003	56.72	57.27	61.07	73.89
326Q3	2006	58.27	57.79	60.38	78.18
	2009	60.62	57.83	63.31	77.72
Diff		+3.90 *	+0.56	—	—
	2003	22.33	15.57	23.50	34.52
326Q4	2006	23.31	22.01	26.72	37.68
	2009	25.32	23.89	28.58	37.63
Diff		+2.99 *	+8.32 *	+5.08 *	—
269Q1	2000	59.10	41.10	64.10	64.00
	2003	59.65	43.14	64.58	65.95
	2006	57.76	42.99	56.27	66.15
	2009	58.00	44.18	61.25	65.71
Diff		—	—	—	—