Is a Direct Approach to Student-level Engagement Factors the Crucial Missing Link in Science Education Reform?
Science reform initiatives in the United States of America, China, Japan, England, Europe and developing countries like Trinidad & Tobago have been focused primarily on issues related to curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and teacher training, retraining and professional development as well as resources. In general, these programmes have not yielded expected results, especially for minority and disadvantaged student populations. Notwithstanding the importance of the content and pedagogical factors just mentioned, research reveals that student-level factors are usually assessed but are never addressed directly. Using research reports for these countries and New Zealand as reported in the TIMSS 2002/2003 study as well as information from PISA studies, this paper identifies significant student-level related factors such as academic self-efficacy, academic task-value, interest in science, and motivation orientations that are related to science achievement outcomes. Thus identified, an argum
