Abstract
Science education for a better citizenship requires training teachers to science epistemology and didactics of science education, in order to favor the evolution of their conceptions about science, science teaching and science learning (epistemic conceptions). These conceptions are studied in the mainly North American research field about personal epistemology. In France, tools are needed to evaluate the impact of teachers’ trainings in science epistemology and didactics of science education. However, there does not exist so far any French psychometric instrument that evaluate epistemic conceptions in science and that is properly validated. Here, we present the outcome of several years of endeavor to develop and set up the Questionnaire that measures Epistemic Conceptions in Science (QCES in French) that are adapted to the epistemological context that is encountered in French science syllabi. We explored the structure and properties the QCES. Results indicated robust internal consistencies of the subscales and their ability to discriminate between different student populations and measure changes in students’ epistemic conceptions.