ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
Assessing Confidence in Scientific-Literacy Competencies Across Academic Levels in Elementary Teacher Education: A Rasch Rating Scale Analysis
- GH
Ghullam Hamdu 1
- AY
Ade Yulianto 1
- YF
Yanti Fitria 2
- PS
Purwo Susongko 3
1. Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia
2. Universitas Negeri Padang, Padang, Indonesia
3. Universitas Negeri Semarang, Semarang, Indonesia
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Abstract
Scientific literacy is central to elementary teacher education, but confidence in using scientific-literacy competencies is not equivalent to objectively demonstrated competence and should be measured and interpreted accordingly. This cross-sectional study examined self-reported confidence across four scientific-literacy content domains among 500 elementary teacher-education participants at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Tasikmalaya Campus (100 each in Years 1–4 and postgraduate study). Undergraduate participants were pre-service teachers, whereas postgraduate participants were practicing teachers. A 40-item instrument used five ordered confidence categories from 1 (very unsure) to 5 (very sure) and was analysed with the Andrich Rating Scale Model in WINSTEPS version 5.7.3.0. The WINSTEPS calibration yielded a mean person measure of 2.46 logits, person reliability of 0.97, and real person separation of 5.37. Item Infit MNSQ ranged from 0.64 to 1.32 and Outfit MNSQ from 0.56 to 1.38. Rasch measures explained approximately 52.9% of raw variance, but the first residual contrast was 2.78 eigenvalue units, indicating secondary residual structure. Local dependence was modest (maximum adjusted Q3 = 0.36), six items showed conservative academic-level DIF, and person-item targeting was weak at the upper end. Continuous person measures differed across academic levels, Welch's F(4, 244.79) = 341.15, p < .001, ω² = .623; Year 4 and postgraduate means did not differ significantly. Because the instrument uses confidence ratings and the design is cross-sectional, the findings describe self-reported scientific-literacy confidence associated with academic level, not objective competence or within-person development. The results support refinement of item targeting, response categories, dimensional structure, and DIF-flagged items before stronger score interpretations are made.
Summary
Keywords
dataset mapping, Educational Measurement, Primary school teacher education, Rasch model, Science Literacy
Received
24 August 2026
Accepted
02 October 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Hamdu, Yulianto, Fitria and Susongko. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Ghullam Hamdu
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