Using climate change scenarios to assess high school students’ argumentation skills

Background: Many international science curriculum documents mandate that students should be able to participate in argument, debate and decision-making about contemporary science issues affecting society. Termed socioscientific issues, these topics provide students with opportunities to use their scientific knowledge to discuss, debate and defend their decisions and to evaluate the arguments of their peers.

Purpose: This study describes the development and trialling of scenarios based on the socioscientific issue of climate change. The scenarios required students to make and justify a decision and were designed to assess students’ argumentation skills.

Sample: A sample of 162 Year 10 students from five schools in Perth, Western Australia participated in this study.

Design and methods: Recent media articles were reviewed to identify relevant contexts for scenarios related to climate change that could be used to develop and assess students’ argumentation skills. In the first phase, students trialled scenarios about wind farms and hydrogen fuel buses using writing frames with scaffolding questions to generate as many reasons as possible to justify their decision. The responses were categorised into themes which were used to prepare a scoring rubric. In the second phase, students generated written arguments about the scenarios to support their decision. The arguments were analysed using both the scoring rubric developed from the first phase and Toulmin’s argumentation pattern of claim, data, backing, qualifier and rebuttal.

Results: Students’ responses to the scaffolded questions were categorised into themes of agriculture, economy, energy, environment, human impact and ethical factors. The themes of economy and the environment predominated with ethical justifications cited infrequently. An analysis of the arguments generated revealed a majority of students’ responses consisted of a claim and data with backings, qualifiers and rebuttals rarely provided.

Conclusions: Scenarios about climate change socioscientific issues can be used by teachers to both develop and assess students’ argumentation skills in classroom settings.     

Relationships between students’ conceptions of constructivist learning and their regulation and processing strategies

The present study investigated relationships between students’ conceptions of constructivist learning on the one hand, and their regulation and processing strategies on the other hand. Students in a constructivist, problem-based learning curriculum were questioned about their conceptions of knowledge construction and self-regulated learning, as well as their beliefs regarding their own (in)ability to learn and motivation to learn. Two hypothesized models were tested within 98 psychology students, using a structural equation modelling approach: The first model implemented regulation and processing variables of the Inventory of Learning Styles [ILS, Vermunt (Learning styles and regulation of learning in higher education – towards process-oriented instruction in autonomous thinking, 1992)], the second model of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire [MSLQ, Pintrich and de Groot (Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 33–40, 1990)]. Results showed that structural relations exist between conceptions of constructivist learning and regulation and processing strategies. Furthermore, students who express doubt with regard to their own learning capacities are at risk for adopting an inadequate regulation strategy. A three-tiered structure of conceptual, controlling, and operational level appeared valid for the MSLQ variables, but not entirely for those of the ILS.     

Photovoice: understanding high school females’ conceptions of mathematics and learning mathematics

Photovoice is a participatory action research tool that is grounded in the literature for critical consciousness (Wang & Burris, 1997). Four creative high school girls who reported struggles with mathematics were given cameras and asked to take photographs to answer the following questions: (1) What is mathematics? (2) What is your ideal learning environment? (3) What things impede your learning of mathematics? Within-case and cross-case analyses of the photographs and interview responses were conducted. Each individual case was analyzed using the work of Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule (Women’s Ways of Knowing, 1986) who investigated women’s epistemological perspectives. The girls were either silenced (disconnected from the mathematical knowledge of the teacher), received (lacked confidence to do mathematics independently), or “fragily” subjective (viewed mathematical knowledge as personal rather than imparted by the teacher) knowers of mathematics. The use of photovoice has the power to facilitate the nurturing of silence as it moves toward the “roar which is on the other side of silence” (Belenky et al., 1986, p. 4).     

Graduate students’ conceptions of university teaching and learning: formation for change

The paper introduces a framework concerning conceptions of teaching and learning of advanced graduate students and the trajectory of change in their conceptions following a formal course on course design and teaching. Students were enrolled in six sections of this graduate course, two offered in a 6-week format and 4 in a 13-week format. The courses were taught by three different instructors. Data were obtained from 88 doctoral students before and after the course using four questions pertaining to the meaning of effective teaching, effective learning, role of the teacher, and role of the learner. Using an open coding procedure, four conceptions were identified. These were transmitting knowledge, preparing context/managing instruction, promoting course learning, and promoting life-long learning. The generalized linear model procedure was used to conduct within and between group pre and post course comparisons. Overall, there was a significant change in response frequency ratios in all four categories across all courses, indicating a decrease in the responses in the first two categories and an increase in the frequency of responses in the last two categories. No significant differences were attributed to course type or instructor.     

First‐year secondary school mathematics students’ conceptions of mathematical proofs and proving

The aim of this study is to investigate students’ conceptions about proof in mathematics and mathematics teaching. A five‐point Likert‐type questionnaire was administered in order to gather data. The sample of the study included 33 first‐year secondary school mathematics students (at the same time student teachers). The data collected were analysed and interpreted using the methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis. The results have revealed that the students think that mathematical proof has an important place in mathematics and mathematics education. The students’ studying methods for exams based on imitative reasoning which can be described as a type of reasoning built on copying proof, for example, by looking at a textbook or course notes proof or through remembering a proof algorithm. Moreover, they addressed to the differences between mathematics taught in high school and university as the main cause of their difficulties in proof and proving.     

Relationships between school climate and adolescent students’ self-reports of ethnic and moral identity

This article reports research into associations between students’ perceptions of the school climate and self-reports of ethnic and moral identity in high schools in Western Australia. An instrument was developed to assess students’ perceptions of their school climate (as a means of monitoring and guiding schools as they are challenged to become more inclusive and grapple with increasingly diverse populations) and administered to 4067 students, 63 % of whom were aged between 12 and 17 years, in eight schools. The same students also responded to a survey developed to assess ethnic and moral identity. Analysis of the data indicated strong, positive associations between the school climate and students’ ethnic and moral identity. The results suggest that, for schools wishing to promote students’ ethnic and moral identity, it would be beneficial to consider important elements of the school climate identified in the new survey.     

School bullying and students’ sense of safety in school: the moderating role of school climate

European Journal of Psychology of Education - One of the negative consequences of bullying in schools is its adverse effect on students’ sense of safety. Previous studies yielded mixed...     

Learning biology as ‘Increase ones’ knowledge and understanding’: studying Taiwanese high school students’ learning strategies in relation to their epistemic views and conceptions of learning in biology

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to examine high school students’ learning strategies in relation to their epistemic views and conceptions of learning in the discipline of biology through a structural equation modelling technique. A total of 247 high school students (168 males) participating in this study completed 3 questionnaires, the Epistemic Views of Biology (EVB), the Conceptions of Learning Biology (COLB), and the Strategies of Learning Biology (SLB). The results supported the hypothesised model proposed in this study, and a new factor of ‘Increase one’s Knowledge and Understanding,’ reflecting the feature of high school students’ biology learning, and serving an important role in biology learning, was identified in this study. In addition, students’ epistemic views were associated with their conceptions of learning, which consequently correlated to their learning strategies. More specifically, the EVB of ‘Uncertainty’ negatively related to lower COLB, which consequently positively related to Surface Strategies, whereas the EVB of ‘Justification’ was positively correlated to higher COLB as ‘Increase one’s Knowledge and Understanding,’ which in turn was correlated to Deep Strategies. According to the research findings, theoretical and practical suggestions for future research are provided.     

Understanding students’ conceptions of sustainability

There has recently been significant emphasis placed on environmental education through, for example, the UN’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Despite this, there is still considerable debate within the literature as to how the aims of environmental education can be achieved within schools. It seems likely that if there is a lack of agreement as to what education for sustainable development should include, then this will impact students’ understanding of sustainable development. This paper presents findings from research investigating how one class of 12‐ to 13‐year‐old geography students in the UK understands the concept of sustainability. The research used concept‐mapping and semi‐structured interviews to explore the students’ understandings of sustainability, within a case study framework. The substantive findings of this research suggest that there is a wide variety of understanding of sustainability among the students, but that generally they allude to three: the nature, purpose and timescale of sustainability. The paper also considers the impact of method on researching students’ subject understandings, in particular the use of context when considering abstract concepts, such as sustainability, and the different results obtained when conducting interviews versus concept maps.     

An investigation of Taiwanese high school students’ science learning self-efficacy in relation to their conceptions of learning science

Background: Past studies have shown significant associations between students’ conceptions of learning science and their science learning self-efficacy. However, in most of the studies, students’ science learning self-efficacy has often been measured by a singular scale.

Purpose: Extending the findings of these studies, the present study adopted a multi-dimensional instrument to assess Taiwanese high school students’ science learning self-efficacy and investigate the relationships with their conceptions of learning science.

Sample: A total of 488 Taiwanese high school students (265 male and 223 female) were invited to participate in this survey.

Design and method: All the participants responded to the Conceptions of Learning Science (COLS) questionnaire regarding ‘Memorizing’, ‘Testing’, ‘Calculating and practicing’, ‘Increase of knowledge’, ‘Applying’ and ‘Understanding and seeing in a new way’ and the Science Learning Self-Efficacy (SLSE) instrument, including ‘Conceptual understanding’, ‘Higher-Order cognitive skills’, ‘Practical work’, ‘Everyday application’ and ‘Science communication’.

Results: The path analysis results derived from the structural equation modeling method indicated that, of all five SLSE dimensions, the ‘Understanding and seeing in a new way’ COLS displayed as a positive predictor, while the ‘Testing’ COLS was a significant negative predictor. The ‘Applying’ COLS item can only positively contribute to the SLSE dimensions of ‘Higher-Order thinking skills’, ‘Everyday application’ and ‘Science Communication’.

Conclusions: In general, students in strong agreement with learning science as understanding and seeing in a new way or the application of learned scientific knowledge are prone to possess higher confidence in learning science. However, students who consider learning science in terms of preparing for tests and examinations tend to hold lower science learning self-efficacy.     

Absolute value inequalities: high school students’ solutions and misconceptions

Inequalities are one of the foundational subjects in high school math curricula, but there is a lack of academic research into how students learn certain types of inequalities. This article fills part of the research gap by presenting the findings of a study that examined high school students’ methods of approaching absolute value inequalities, their common mistakes, misconceptions, and the possible sources of these mistakes and misconceptions. The research study used two tools—a questionnaire and personal interviews. The questionnaire was given to 481 students in the 10th and 11th grades in Israel who studied mathematics at intermediate and advanced levels. It was administered after the students had studied inequalities. Thirty-two students were interviewed in order to find their ways of thinking and the sources of their errors. The main types of mistakes that students consistently made when solving absolute value inequalities were found. Based on the study’s findings, teachers can understand students’ thought processes and use this understanding to conduct remediation and enhance mathematics instruction.     

Eliciting Taiwanese high school students’ scientific ontological and epistemic beliefs

ABSTRACT

This study employed the interview method to clarify the underlying dimensions of and relationships between students’ scientific ontological and epistemic beliefs. Forty Taiwanese high school students were invited to participate in this study. Through content analysis of the participants’ interview responses two ontological dimensions including ‘status of nature’ and ‘structure of nature’ were identified and found to be associated with each other. The two epistemic dimensions ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowing’ aligned with past literature were also categorised. Besides five pattern variations in terms of the aforementioned four dimensions were recognised based on the students’ philosophical stances on their scientific ontological and epistemic beliefs. According to the Chi-square test results both dimensions of scientific ontological beliefs were significantly related to the two dimensions of scientific epistemic beliefs respectively. In general the students who endorsed a more sophisticated ontological stance regarding the status and structure of nature tended to express a more mature epistemic stance toward scientific knowledge and ways of knowing. The results suggest that the maturation of students’ scientific epistemic beliefs may serve as a precursor and the fundamental step in promoting the sophistication of students’ scientific ontological beliefs.     

Primary school students’ conceptions about microorganisms. Influence of theoretical and practical methodologies on learning

Background: Microorganisms are very important in day-to-day life, but they are inadequately addressed in the Spanish educational system. It is essential that students are well informed about their characteristics and functions.

Purpose: The study aims to find out primary school students’ perceptions of microorganisms and to analyze whether theoretical or practical teaching interventions produce different levels in student’s learning about this topic.

Sample: The sample consisted of 199 primary students in 2nd (aged 7–8) and 6th (11–12) grades from two public schools in Albacete (Spain).

Design and method: This study uses a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire to evaluate the knowledge of students on the issue of microorganisms. We compare differences by age and two teaching–learning intervention methodologies: theoretical and practical.

Results: Results from the pre-test showed a poor understanding and several misconceptions. Children have a limited and negative view of microorganisms, mainly derived from non-formal learning. Both types of intervention provided an improvement in knowledge, but closed questions did not reveal clear statistically significant differences between methods. Open questions showed how the scientific use of the language and quality of verbalization is much better in the groups that received a practical intervention.

Conclusion: The findings can be a starting point for curriculum planners and for teachers interested in engaging students in science learning.     

When intuitive conceptions overshadow pedagogical content knowledge: Teachers’ conceptions of students’ arithmetic word problem solving strategies

Intuitive conceptions in mathematics guide the interpretation of mathematical concepts. We investigated if they bias teachers’ conceptions of student arithmetic word problem solving strategies, which should be part of their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). In individual interviews, teachers and non-teaching adults were asked to describe students’ strategies in situational contexts within or outside the scope of the intuitive conception. The results revealed that teachers relied on their PCK and identified student strategies; however, in the presence of the intuitive conception, their PCK was overshadowed and they ceased to differ significantly from non-teachers. This brings the attention to certain biases that can have a strong impact on teachers’ efficient use of PCK.     

Understanding students’ conceptions of task assignments

Building on research emphasizing the importance of task in reading performance, the present study examines students’ conceptions or definitions of five common academic task assignments (i.e., argument, essay, opinion, summary and research tasks). Results showed that while students have robust schema for some task assignments (e.g., argument, research report), citing a large variety of task elements in defining each of these assignment, other task assignments are only superficially conceptualized by learners (e.g., opinion, essay). While prior work has demonstrated the important role of task assignment in students’ text processing and performance, this is among the first studies to associate emergent differences not only with the tasks assigned but also with students’ task conceptions. Given the emphasis placed on argument tasks in supporting deeper level processing, we were especially interested in students’ conceptions of argument tasks vis-à-vis summary tasks. Students’ conceptions of these and other task assignments were compared using Cochran’s Q, a non-parametric alternative to the repeated measures ANOVA. Finally, linear regression found students’ conceptions of an argument task to be associated with performance on an argument writing task assignment. For instance, students considering argument construction to require citation use was associated with their inclusion of citations in their written responses. This study is among the first to examine students’ own conceptions of common task assignments and to link task conceptions with performance. Implications for instruction are discussed.     

Urban high school students’ perspectives about sexual health decision-making: the role of school culture and identity

Studies across fields such as science education, health education, health behavior, and curriculum studies identify a persistent gap between the aims of the school curriculum and its impact on students’ thinking and acting about the real-life decisions that affect their lives. The present study presents a different story from this predominant pattern in the literature. Through a year-long ethnographic investigation of a health-focused New York City public high school’s HIV/AIDS and sex education program, this study illustrates a case in which 20 12th grade students respond positively to their education on these topics and largely assert that school significantly influences their perspectives and actions related to sexual health decision-making. This paper presents the following interpretation of this positive influence: school culture influences these students’ perspectives and decisions around sexual health by contributing to the formation of students’ identities. This paper further shows how science learning in particular becomes important for students in relation to decision-making when it is linked to issues of identity. These findings suggest that, in addition to attending to the design of classroom curriculum, HIV/AIDS and sex education researchers and curriculum developers (as well as those in science education focusing on other controversial science topics) might also explore the kinds of relational and school-wide factors that potentially influence students’ identities, decisions, and responses to school learning.     

Measuring senior high school students’ self-induced self-reflective thinking

Theoretically, reflection is known to be an essential skill for improving learning on a metacognitive level. In practice, students may not use it of their own accord to improve this kind of learning because it can be mentally demanding. The author reports on the legitimation of an instrument measuring self-induced self-reflective thinking, which is reflection of one's own accord focused on improving general knowledge of the learning process. In 2 studies, the psychometric properties and nomological validity of open-ended self-induced self-reflective thinking questions were examined. Senior high school students responded to these questions and several measures of general knowledge of the learning process. Results showed statistically significant relationships between self-induced self-reflective thinking and general knowledge of the learning process. Implications for educational research are discussed.     

Effectiveness of digital education shifting model on high school students’ engagement

Education and Information Technologies - Digital learning has often been criticized due to its lack of student engagement, which results from the physical absence of teachers and the lack of direct...     

University students’ and teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning in the biosciences

In this study we compare university teachers’ and first-year students’ conceptions of teaching and learning at the Faculty of Environmental and Biological Sciences. The conceptions were analysed using data from open-ended questionnaires. The results showed that at the beginning of studies the gap between teachers’ and students’ conceptions of teaching and learning is substantial. This finding has important implications for the educational process. In order to enhance successful studying from the beginning of students’ university careers, it is important for teachers to become aware of the differences between students’ and teachers’ conceptions of learning.     

Middle school students’ learning of mechanics concepts through engagement in different sequences of physical and virtual experiments

ABSTRACT

Physical and virtual experimentation are thought to have different affordances for supporting students’ learning. Research investigating the use of physical and virtual experiments to support students’ learning has identified a variety of, sometimes conflicting, outcomes. Unanswered questions remain about how physical and virtual experiments may impact students’ learning and for which contexts and content areas they may be most effective. Using a quasi-experimental design, we examined eighth grade students’ (N?=?100) learning of physics concepts related to pulleys depending on the sequence of physical and virtual labs they engaged in. Five classes of students were assigned to either the: physical first condition (PF) (n?=?55), where students performed a physical pulley experiment and then performed the same experiment virtually, or virtual first condition (VF) (n?=?45), with the opposite sequence. Repeated measures ANOVA’s were conducted to examine how physical and virtual labs impacted students’ learning of specific physics concepts. While we did not find clear-cut support that one sequence was better, we did find evidence that participating in virtual experiments may be more beneficial for learning certain physics concepts, such as work and mechanical advantage. Our findings support the idea that if time or physical materials are limited, using virtual experiments may help students understand work and mechanical advantage.