Focus for Teacher Assessment of Primary Science (Focus4TAPS) trial: determining the impact of teacher training and resources on pupils’ science attainment and attitudes

Focus for Teacher Assessment of Primary Science

Status

Recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ISRCTN

Registry ID

ISRCTN17920547

Enrollment

3500

Registered

2020-12-11

Start date

2018-12-01

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2021-01-05

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Pupils’ science attainment and attitudes towards science Not Applicable

Interventions

The participants (school pupils) are not blinded, but the outcome measurement is. The intervention applies a school-level randomisation approach, via stratified randomisation (using geographic regions

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Inclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria: Schools will be eligible for the intervention if: 1. The school has children in Year 5 during the 2020-2021 academic year 2. The school has not taken part in the Thinking Doing Talking Science trial, the Primary Science Quality Mark (from 2017 onwards), or the TAPS project

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria: Parents had the opportunity to choose to opt their children out of the trial; such children will be excluded from all analysis.

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame
Science attainment, measured towards the end of academic Year 5 using an adapted version of the Thinking, Doing, Talking Science (TDTS) test. At the time of the writing of the proposal for this trial, the EEF commissioned a piece of work for an external team to compare the TDTS instrument to the current national curriculum to assess the extent to which it corresponded to the latest programmes of study. The conclusion was that there is a poor match between the current version of the TDTS test and the current national curriculum. Thus, while the preferred primary outcome measure continues to be the TDTS test, this will rely in part on any adaptations to the test being externally tested (which are underway at the time of writing this statistical analysis plan), and for these to show good psychometric properties. In the case that there are poor psychometric properties, the evaluation team will use another measure for the primary outcome of this trial. This will be the GL Assessment Progress Test in Science (PTS).	—

Measure

Time frame

Science attainment, measured towards the end of academic Year 5 using an adapted version of the Thinking, Doing, Talking Science (TDTS) test. At the time of the writing of the proposal for this trial, the EEF commissioned a piece of work for an external team to compare the TDTS instrument to the current national curriculum to assess the extent to which it corresponded to the latest programmes of study. The conclusion was that there is a poor match between the current version of the TDTS test and the current national curriculum. Thus, while the preferred primary outcome measure continues to be the TDTS test, this will rely in part on any adaptations to the test being externally tested (which are underway at the time of writing this statistical analysis plan), and for these to show good psychometric properties. In the case that there are poor psychometric properties, the evaluation team will use another measure for the primary outcome of this trial. This will be the GL Assessment Progress Test in Science (PTS).

—

Secondary

Measure	Time frame
Science attitudes measured through questionnaire responses collected towards the end of academic Year 5.	—

Countries

United Kingdom

Contacts

Public ContactTamjid Mujtaba

t.mujtaba@ucl.ac.uk+44 (0)20 7612 6000

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ISRCTN (via WHO ICTRP) · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026