Evaluating scientific thinking among Shanghai’s students of high and low performing schools

Shanghai is dubbed as a role model for science and mathematics education as its fifteen-year-olds have been outperforming all in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) since 2009. Shanghai’s achievements are attributed to its interest in adopting innovative international trends in education and equally effectively implementing these at its high and low-performing schools. One such trend in science education is based on the univariable and Control of Variable (CoV) strategies. This model is also used in constructing higher-order thinking items in science and mathematics assessments in PISA. Our first objective was to understand if students of Shanghai mastered the CoV strategies. Beyond CoV models, the emerging trend in science education promotes multivariable thinking among young adolescents. Our second objective was to understand if Shanghai has adopted this emerging trend and prepared its students on multivariable thinking. Using specially designed and previously validated assessments, we measured and compared the CoV and multivariable thinking skills of fifteen-year-olds representing one high and one low-performing school. Our results highlighted the equally exceptional performance of both schools in the CoV tasks and comparatively poor performance in the multivariable causal reasoning and prediction tasks. These findings may offer one aspect to understand Shanghai’s performance in the PISA, at the same time highlight the weaknesses in its contemporary science education.