The abstract thinking levels of the science-education students in Gaza universities

a. Study Approach

To investigate the abstract thinking level of the university students in Science Education Department, the descriptive analytical approach was selected as the most appropriate method to fulfill the aim of the study .

b. Study Subjects

The study subjects are 133 students from Science Education Department from Palestine. There are 53 student-teachers from Al-Aqsa University and 80 student-teachers from Al-Azhar University, in Gaza. The sample of the study was about 60% of the society.

Table 2. Subject of the study

Year/Level	Al-Azhar	Al-Aqsa
4^th year	55	27
1^st year	25	26
Sub-total	80	53
Total No of Students			133

c. Instrument and Administration

The tool selected to assess the abstract thinking (or cognitive levels) of the students was the "SRTs- SP". It is one of the SRTs series. This task assesses cognitive development levels between the ranges of mature concrete (2B) and formal generalization or abstraction level (3B). The task contains thirteen items and investigates the student's ability to manage and control variables. Towards the end of the task, the problems raised in the test need a late formal thinker (appendix 1).

Scoring: The method of ascribing a level of cognitive development (Abstract thinking) to student has been made simpler and more reliable. Examiner can make assessment simply on the total number of items that a subject/student has answered correctly; and the level of development is expressed directly as a number on scale (table. 3). Students' responses are given scores of either `1' if correct or adequate and `0' if incorrect. The final score each student obtained was matched with the corresponding numerical scale and Piagetian level, representative of the student's stage of cognitive development (Table. 3).

Table 3. Scoring system for Science Reasoning Tasks – the Simple Pendulum

Total no. of right items	The scale /corresponding score	Classification /Cognitive Developmental (Abstract.) level
1	5.2	Mature Concrete	2B
2	5.7	Mature Concrete	2B
3	6.1	Concrete Generalization	2B*
4	6.4	Concrete Generalization	2B*
5	6.7	Concrete Generalization	2B*
6	7	Early formal	3A
7	7.2	Early formal	3A
8	7.4	Early formal	3A
9	7.7	Early formal	3A
10	8	Mature formal	3A/3B
11	8.4	Mature formal	3A/3B
12	8.9	Mature formal	3A/3B
13	9.8	Formal generalization	3B

d. Development and Verification of the instrument

This SRTs test, as well as the others in the series, was evaluated in a rigorous manner by the CSMS team in terms of their reliability and validity. The reliability of the tests was investigated in two ways. The internal consistency was measured by the Kuder-Richardson coefficient (rtt), and the value obtained for the task was 0.86.

Detailed studies of content, construct, concurrent and predictive validities have been carried out and reported by CSMS team (McCormack, et al, 2009). The Cronbach's Alpha coefficient for the used tool (SRTs) was 0.7, deeming it to be internally consistent.

e. Translation of study tool (SRTs) to Arabic Language

The researcher translated the current SRTs test to Arabic language. The content validity of translation was examined through reviewing the translated copy by three professors from colleges of education. Some modifications in translation were done to have clear meaning of the content.

f. Reliability of the Arabic copy of the SRTs

Test-retest reliability method was used to measure the tool reliability (the extent to which a task will tell the same story on two successive occasions). The same students (outside the sample) were given the same task twice within a three weeks. Correlation between the two values was done to determine the value of correlation coefficient "r". The reported value for "r" was 0.84, which is a good value for such a type of research.