Cooperative,competitive, and individualistic science laboratory interaction patterns—effects on students' achievement and acquisition of practical skills

Using 1025 junior secondary class three (ninth grade) students and twelve science teachers, this study investigated the effects of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic science laboratory interaction patterns on students' achievement in science and the level of acquisition of practical skills. A 3 × 3 (interaction pattern by ability) factorial model was employed for data gathering. Significant main and interaction effects were found for both dependent measures. The cooperative group was found to be superior on the achievement measure with no difference between the competitive and individualistic groups. The competitive group, however, outperformed the others in practical skills. Additional data indicated that the mixed ability cooperative group did significantly better than the mixed ability competitive group in achievement but not in practical skills. In sum these data are supportive of the differential effects of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic goal structures on cognitive and psychomotor tasks. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for more productive science laboratory work.     

Effects of learning cycle and traditional text on comprehension of science concepts by students at differing reasoning levels

Research has found the learning cycle to be effective for science instruction in hands‐on laboratories and interactive discussions. Can the learning cycle, in which examples precede the introduction of new terms, also be applied effectively to science text? A total of 123 high school students from two suburban schools were tested for reasoning ability, then randomly assigned to read either a learning cycle or traditional text passage. Immediate and delayed posttests provided concept comprehension scores that were analyzed by type of text passage and by reasoning level. Students who read the learning cycle passage earned higher scores on concept comprehension questions than those who read the traditional passage, at all reasoning levels. This result supports the hypothesis that reading comprehension and scientific inquiry involve similar information‐processing strategies and confirms the prediction that science text presented in the learning cycle format is more comprehensible for readers at all reasoning levels. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 23–37, 1999.     

The effects of instructional intervention on improving proportional,probabilistic, and correlational reasoning skills among undergraduate education majors

The main purpose of this study was to test the effect of instruction to improve the reasoning skills of undergraduates majoring in the field of education. The results of this investigation demonstrate the lack of proficiency in formal reasoning by undergraduate education majors in the areas of proportional, probabilistic, and correlational reasoning. However, after receiving three specifically planned interventions, students in the experimental group showed improvement in all three areas of reasoning (p ≤ 0.05). Also, it was noted that students with science and/or math in their backgrounds performed significantly (p ≤ 0.05) better in all three areas of reasoning on both pre‐ and post‐tests than did students with no science or math in their backgrounds. This study is among the first to show that background knowledge obtained from college level science and math courses correlates with better reasoning skills. Data from this study also demonstrated that interventions focusing on probability and proportionality improved the correlational reasoning skills of students. The results of this investigation indicate that deficiencies in reasoning abilities in the areas of proportionality, probability, and correlational reasoning can be successfully addressed even with limited classroom intervention. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 981–995, 2000     

University Students’ Knowledge Structures and Informal Reasoning on the Use of Genetically Modified Foods: Multidimensional Analyses

This study aims to provide insights into the role of learners’ knowledge structures about a socio-scientific issue (SSI) in their informal reasoning on the issue. A total of 42 non-science major university students’ knowledge structures and informal reasoning were assessed with multidimensional analyses. With both qualitative and quantitative analyses, this study revealed that those students with more extended and better-organized knowledge structures, as well as those who more frequently used higher-order information processing modes, were more oriented towards achieving a higher-level informal reasoning quality. The regression analyses further showed that the “richness” of the students’ knowledge structures explained 25 % of the variation in their rebuttal construction, an important indicator of reasoning quality, indicating the significance of the role of students’ sophisticated knowledge structure in SSI reasoning. Besides, this study also provides some initial evidence for the significant role of the “core” concept within one’s knowledge structure in one’s SSI reasoning. The findings in this study suggest that, in SSI-based instruction, science instructors should try to identify students’ core concepts within their prior knowledge regarding the SSI, and then they should try to guide students to construct and structure relevant concepts or ideas regarding the SSI based on their core concepts. Thus, students could obtain extended and well-organized knowledge structures, which would then help them achieve better learning transfer in dealing with SSIs.     

Can Good Concept Mappers be Good Problem Solvers in Science?

Problem solving is an enduring issue in science education, ostensibly because science itself is basically concerned with problem solving—exploring the universe and seeking answers to intriguing phenomena in nature. Remarkable strides have been made in psychology about recording the minutiae of problem solving as a cognitive process. Concept mapping, a metalearning tool, is appearing on the scene as a potential pathway for promoting the acquisition of problem‐solving skills. Drawing 40 subjects from a pool of students who experienced cooperative and individualistic concept‐mapping experiences for six months and adjudged to be good concept mappers, this study found the concept‐, mapping group to be significantly more successful in solving three biological problems than 20 subjects who served as control. Written and think‐aloud procedures and interviews were conducted as part of the administration of the Biology Problem Solving Test. No statistically significant difference was found between students who mapped concepts cooperatively and those who mapped individually. There were mixed results for gender. The implications of the findings for further research and for improving problem‐solving abilities of students are drawn.     

Effects of cooperative incentives and heterogeneous arrangement on achievement and interaction of cooperative learning groups in a college life science course

The purpose of this study was to examine the importance of cooperative incentives and heterogeneous grouping as elements of cooperative learning in a college life science course. Cooperative learning may be defined as a classroom learning environment in which students work together in heterogeneous groups toward completion of some task. Cooperative incentive structures provide some type of group reward based on group products or individual learning. In heterogeneous grouping, students are arranged in order to maximize variety within groups. A 2 × 2 design was utilized in this study. The independent variables considered included (a) use of cooperative incentives in learning groups, and (b) use of heterogeneous grouping in cooperative learning groups. Dependent variables for all treatment groups were scores from a multiple-choice instrument developed for an earlier, related study, along with direct observational data on frequency of cooperative interactions. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used as the data analysis procedure for the achievement portion of the study, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for analysis of the cooperative interaction portion of the study. No significant differences were found between the treatment groups.     

Thinking Aloud Together: A Test of an Intervention to Foster Students' Collaborative Scientific Reasoning

This study addressed the question of how to increase students' competencies for regulating their co‐construction of knowledge when tackling complex collaborative learning tasks which are increasingly emphasized as a dimension of educational reform. An intervention stressing the metacognitive, regulatory, and strategic aspects of knowledge co‐construction, called Thinking Aloud Together, was embedded within a 12‐week science unit on building mental models of the nature of matter. Four classes of eighth graders received the intervention, and four served as control groups for quantitative analyses. In addition, the interactions of 24 students in eight focal groups were profiled qualitatively, and 12 of those students were interviewed twice. Students who received the intervention gained in metacognitive knowledge about collaborative reasoning and ability to articulate their collaborative reasoning processes in comparison to students in control classrooms, as hypothesized. However, the treatment and control students did not differ either in their abilities to apply their conceptual knowledge or in their on‐line collaborative reasoning behaviors in ways that were attributable to the intervention. Thus, there was a gap between students' metacognitive knowledge about collaborative cognition and their use of collaborative reasoning skills. Several reasons for this result are explored, as are patterns relating students' outcomes to their perspectives on learning science. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 1085–1109, 1999.     

Increasing explanatory behaviour,problem-solving,and reasoning within classes using cooperative group work

The present study builds on research that indicates that teachers play a key role in promoting those interactional behaviours that challenge children’s thinking and scaffold their learning. It does this by seeking to determine whether teachers who implement cooperative learning and receive training in explicit strategic questioning strategies demonstrate more verbal behaviours that mediate children’s learning than teachers who implement cooperative learning only. The study also sought to determine whether students who receive training in explicit questioning strategies demonstrate more explanatory behaviour than their untrained peers, and, as a consequence, do these same students demonstrate more advanced reasoning and problem-solving skills on follow-up reasoning and problem-solving tasks. The study involved 31 teachers in two conditions, the cooperative + strategic questioning condition and the cooperative condition, and two groups of students from each teacher’s classroom. The results show that the teachers in the cooperative + strategic questioning condition used significantly more mediating behaviours than their peers in the cooperative condition. The study also showed that the children in these teachers’ classes engaged in more elaboration and obtained significantly higher scores on the follow-up reasoning and problem-solving tasks. The study demonstrates the importance of explicitly teaching strategic questioning strategies to children during cooperative learning.     

Scientific reasoning and epistemological commitments: Coordination of theory and evidence among college science students

Reasoning skills are major contributors to academic and everyday life success. Epistemological commitments (ECs) are believed to underlie reasoning processes and, when considered, could do much in delineating the complex nature of scientific reasoning. This study examined the relationship between ECs and scientific reasoning among college science students. Prior knowledge (PK) was factored in as an intervening variable. Participants were 139 college students enrolled in two physics courses in a large Midwestern university. They completed an online questionnaire, which assessed their PK regarding buoyancy in liquids and EC to the consistency of theory with evidence. Responses to the online questionnaire were used to select 40 participants with varying levels of PK and EC. These participants were divided into four groups, each with 10 students, representing four conditions: High PK–High EC, High PK–Low EC, Low PK–High EC, and Low PK–Low EC. These groups allowed using a 2 × 2 factorial quasi‐experimental design to examine the relationship between participants' reasoning and ECs, accounting for their PK. The quality of participants' reasoning was assessed during individual interviews, which presented them with four problem‐solving tasks involving objects immersed in water. Two‐way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated the absence of interaction between PK and EC. The results showed that the higher the ECs were, the higher the quality of reasoning was for comparable levels of PK. Additionally, it was found that PK impacted reasoning more strongly when ECs were weaker. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 1064–1093, 2010     

Impact of Secondary Students’ Content Knowledge on Their Communication Skills in Science

The expert blind spot (EBS) hypothesis implies that even some experts with a high content knowledge might have problems in science communication because they are using the structure of the content rather than their addressee’s prerequisites as an orientation. But is that also true for students? Explaining science to peers is a crucial part of cooperative learning methods such as the “jigsaw method”. Our study examined the relationship between science communication competence (SCC) and content knowledge (CK) of 10th-grade students (N = 213). Using latent class analysis, we identified two types of students with a different relationship between CK and SCC. Using path analysis, we found that the first type of 109 students primarily used their science CK as the “resource” for addressee-oriented science communication and both their SCC and their CK were correlated with each other. For the second type of 104 students (who used other resources), their CK even had a small negative effect on their SCC. Using t tests, we found that those students primarily using their CK as the resource for communication performed significantly worse in the communication test than did those students who used other resources. Using the EBS hypothesis, we suggest that students’ CK might have ambiguous effects in communication if the content structure—rather than their addressee’s prior knowledge—is used as the primary orientation for communication. We suggest that an effective use of cooperative learning techniques in classroom requires a special prior training for their science communication skills.     

Plants or animals—which do junior high school students prefer to study?

This research addressed the following questions: (1) Which science topic do junior high school students prefer to study—plants or animals? (2) Is their preference related to the variables of grade level and sex of student? Public school students from grades 7, 8, and 9 in Avoca, New York participated in the study. Findings show that 9th grade students have a greater interest in biological science topics than do students in the other grades studied. Girls are more interested in biological science topics than boys are. Girls also showed a significant preference for animals over plants. As a group, junior high school students revealed that they prefer animal study over plant study. About half of the student responses categorized as “biological science” did not express a clear-cut preference for either plants or animals. A caution about generalizability is expressed. Interviews of students suggest that the following characteristics of animals are important determinants of preferences: Animals move, eat, have eyes for sight, communicate by sound, exhibit behaviors that are fun to watch, have short and observable live cycles, interact with humans, can learn, have mates, give birth, and raise their young. It was obvious that most students think of mammals when they hear the term “animal.”     

The effects of hands-on and teacher demonstration laboratory methods on science achievement in relation to reasoning ability and prior knowledge

The present study compared the relative effects of hands-on and teacher demonstration laboratory methods on declarative knowledge (factual and conceptual) and procedural knowledge (problem-solving) achievement. Of particular interest were (a) whether these relationships vary as a function of reasoning ability and (b) whether prior knowledge and reasoning ability predict student achievement. Ninth-grade physical science students were randomly assigned to classes taught by either a hands-on or a teacher demonstration laboratory method. Students' reasoning ability and prior knowledge of science were assessed prior to the instruction. The two instructional methods resulted in equal declarative knowledge achievement. However, students in the hands-on laboratory class performed significantly better on the procedural knowledge test than did students in the teacher demonstration class. These results were unrelated to reasoning ability. Prior knowledge significantly predicted performance on the declarative knowledge test. Both reasoning ability and prior knowledge significantly predicted performance on the procedural knowledge test, with reasoning ability being the stronger predictor.     

How Learning Logic Programming Affects Recursion Comprehension

Recursion is a central concept in computer science, yet it is difficult for beginners to comprehend. Israeli high-school students learn recursion in the framework of a special modular program in computer science (Gal-Ezer & Harel, 1999). Some of them are introduced to the concept of recursion in two different paradigms: the procedural programming paradigm and the logic programming (LP) paradigm. Here we discuss the implication of first learning recursion in LP on the students’ understanding of the concept. The declarative approach for teaching recursion in logic programming seems to enhance students’ recursion comprehension. We found that students who learned recursion in LP before learning it in a procedural paradigm differed, in terms of their mental models of recursion, from those who were acquainted with recursion in procedural programming only. More of the LP students possessed an adequate model of recursion as a process than did the non-LP students. Moreover, the LP students also attained a unique conception of recursion as a tool for knowledge representation.     

The effects of scientific representations on primary students’ development of scientific discourse and conceptual understandings during cooperative contemporary inquiry-science

Teaching students to use and interpret representations in science is critically important if they are to become scientifically literate and learn how to communicate their understandings and learning in science. This study involved 248 students (119 boys and 129 girls) from 26 grade 6 teachers’ classes in nine primary schools in Brisbane, Australia. Teachers were randomly allocated by school to one of three conditions: the contemporary science + representations condition (Experimental^a), the contemporary condition (Experimental^b), or the comparison condition as they participated in an eight-week inquiry-science unit on Natural Disasters. Data on students’ discourse were collected at two time points during the implementation of the unit and data on the concept maps were collected pre- and post-intervention while data on the reasoning and problem-solving (RP-S) task were collected following the intervention. The results show that when students participate in an inquiry-based science unit that is augmented with a variety of multimedia resources presenting a range of current contemporary events (Experimental^a and Experimental^b conditions), they demonstrate significantly more social language and basic scientific language and marked increases in moderate scientific language than their peers in the comparison condition. Interestingly, although there were no significant differences on the Personal Concept Map scores between the conditions at Times 1 and 2, the students’ scores in all conditions improved decidedly across time. It appears that as the children had more time to engage with the material, participate in cooperative peer discussions, and receive encouragement from their teachers to provide elaborated feedback to each other, their conceptual understandings of earthquakes were enhanced. However, although the children in the experimental conditions demonstrated significantly more social and scientific language than their peers in the comparison condition, these oral language skills did not transfer to the RP-S task, possibly because they may not have had enough time to consolidate their application in a novel context where they had to work independently.     

Science Process Skills and Cognitive Preference Styles

The study examined the differences in cognitive styles between two comparable groups of students at the Grade 9 (Secondary 3) level, namely the LSS (Lower Secondary Science) group who had been exposed to the practical-based, inquiry-oriented type of science and the non-LSS group of students who had studied the more traditional type of science in the “old” science curriculum. Their differences in science achievement are measured by the common IEA Science Paper-Pencil, Multiple Choice Criterion Test and also, by the Science Process or Practical Test (which measured three levels of process skills, such as the observation/manipulation, reasoning and investigation skills). Variance in science achievement thus measured is examined against the 4 cognitive preference styles of the students, (measured by the Combined Cognitive Preference Inventory) namely the “recall”, “principles”, “applications” and “questioning” modes of thinking. The findings indicated that (a) the attainment of the science process or practical skills was characterised by the type of science curriculum (LSS or non-LSS) and it was significantly associated with the achievement level of students, (b) the cognitive preference pattern covaried according to the students' level of science achievement and the type of curriculum and (c) the weak but significant relationship between performance in the science practical skills and the students' modes of cognitive style have important implications for teachers who are concerned about the intended effects of changes in the science curriculum on the consequent learning behaviour or cognitive outcome of their students.     

Influencing student understanding of the nature of science: Data from a case of curriculum development

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the first-year field test BSCS middle school science program on student understanding of the creative, developmental, testable, and unified nature of science. The experimental group, which was exposed to the BSCS program, and the control group, which was taught using a more traditional middle school science curriculum, were administered a pretest and posttest using the Modified Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale (MNSKS). Analyses of the results showed that the understanding of students who experienced the BSCS science program decreased significantly in regard to the developmental and testable nature of science. The understanding of students who experienced the control-group science program decreased significantly in regard to the creative nature of science. Analyses of covariance indicated that students in the control group possessed a significantly better understanding of the testable nature of science than did students who used the BSCS science program. Implications of these results are related to the constructivist view of learning, the development of curricula designed to facilitate scientific literacy, and future research endeavors.     

Does Higher Education Improve Student Scientific Reasoning Skills?

An ultimate goal of higher education is to prepare our future workers with needed knowledge and skills. This includes cultivating students to become proficient reasoners who can utilize proper scientific reasoning to devise causal inferences from observations. Conventionally, students with more years of higher education are expected to have a greater level of scientific reasoning. Also expected traditionally is that studying science and engineering or attending top-rated universities can better promote students’ scientific reasoning than studying other majors or attending lower ranked institutions. In this study, we used Lawson’s Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR) with 1,637 Chinese students in different years of study, different fields, and different university tiers. It was found that regardless of which major or university students entered, their scientific reasoning measured by the LCTSR showed little variation across the entire 4 years of undergraduate education. Simply put, there was little association between tertiary-level learning and scientific reasoning. This study calls our attention to the status quo of higher education and motivates researchers across the globe to look into this issue in their own nations.     

The effect of retesting on end-of-semester performance in high school chemistry at three levels of previous science achievement

To determine the effect of retesting on student learning in chemistry, three questions were addressed by means of a 3 × 2 (achievement level X treatment) factorial design: (1) Does retesting affect differently the end-of-semester mastery of course objectives of students who are grouped according to their previous achievement in science? (2) Do students who are given an opportunity to take retests merely delay their studying and perform at a lower level on initial tests than nonretested students? (3) Is the procrastination of retested students (if it exists) affected by their achievement level? The results showed that for one of four units low ability students who were retested demonstrated greater learning gains than low ability students who were not retested, and that procrastination, if it was present, did not have significant effects on student learning at any achievement level. Results were discussed in terms of the students' room for improvement, motivation to improve, and ability to improve.     

Categories in conflict: Combating the application of an intuitive conception of inheritance with category construction

The idea that characteristics acquired by an organism during its lifetime can be inherited by offspring and result in evolution is a substantial impediment to student understanding of evolution. In the current study, we performed a preliminary examination of how acquiring physical changes in a question prompt may differentially cue intuitive and scientific justifications of inheritance and evolution and how this varies based on how student learned the concept. Middle school students in a suburban northeastern district (N = 314) either learned about evolutionary change with a category construction task (with different levels of feedback support) or completed a worksheet. Three days later students responded to two free response scenarios (one where a physical change is acquired). Responses were coded based on student justifications for either science accuracy or intuitive nature. Specific reasons were coded by justification type with high inter-rater agreement (k > 0.93). Results showed that students were more likely to apply intuitive reasoning when a physical change was acquired (50%) than if the change was behavioral in nature (16%). Additionally, students who completed the category construction task provided significantly more scientifically accurate justifications about inheritance (M = 1.12) than control students (M = 0.47), and significantly less intuitive justifications (M = 0.67) than control (M = 1.13). Finally, category construction produced the most scientific reasoning when feedback was provided. Taken together, these results suggest that intuitive reasoning is differentially applied based on physical organismal changes, intuitive reasoning is less frequent when learning via category construction, and the category construction task is more effective for this population with the inclusion of feedback.