Secondary School Students’ Reasoning About Science and Personhood

Science & Education - Scientific advances, particularly in evolutionary biology, genetics, neuroscience and artificial intelligence, present many challenges to religious and popular notions of...     

Historical Reasoning: Towards a Framework for Analyzing Students’ Reasoning about the Past

This article explores historical reasoning, an important activity in history learning. Based upon an extensive review of empirical literature on students’ thinking and reasoning about history, a theoretical framework of historical reasoning is proposed. The framework consists of six components: asking historical questions, using sources, contextualization, argumentation, using substantive concepts, and using meta-concepts. Each component is discussed and illustrated by examples from our own research. The article concludes with suggestions on how to use the framework both in future research and in educational practice.     

Students’ Attitudes to Information in the Press: Critical Reading of a Newspaper Article With Scientific Content

This research analyses what happens when a critical reading activity based on a press article dealing with an energy-related problem is implemented with two groups of students of 13–14 years old and 16–17 years old in the same school (a total of 117 students). Specifically, the research analyses the students’ profiles from the standpoint of their attitudes to the information given in the news story and the use they make of it when writing an argumentative text. It also analyses the difficulties the students have when it comes to applying their knowledge about energy in a real-life context. Lastly, some strategies are suggested for helping students to critically analyse the scientific content of a newspaper article. Three reader profiles were identified (the credulous reader, the ideological reader and the critical reader). No significant differences were found in reading profiles in terms of age or scientific knowledge. The findings show that the activity helped to link science learning in school with facts relating to an actual context, particularly in the case of students with more science knowledge.     

Challenging Students’ Intuitions—the Influence of a Tangible Model of Virus Assembly on Students’ Conceptual Reasoning About the Process of Self-Assembly

A well-ordered biological complex can be formed by the random motion of its components, i.e. self-assemble. This is a concept that incorporates issues that may contradict students’ everyday experiences and intuitions. In previous studies, we have shown that a tangible model of virus self-assembly, used in a group exercise, helps students to grasp the process of self-assembly and in particular the facet “random molecular collision”. The present study investigates how and why the model and the group exercise facilitate students’ learning of this particular facet. The data analysed consist of audio recordings of six group exercises (n?=?35 university students) and individual semi-structured interviews (n?=?5 university students). The analysis is based on constructivist perspectives of learning, a combination of conceptual change theory and learning with external representations. Qualitative analysis indicates that perceived counterintuitive aspects of the process created a cognitive conflict within learners. The tangible model used in the group exercises facilitated a conceptual change in their understanding of the process. In particular, the tangible model appeared to provide cues and possible explanations and functioned as an “eye-opener” and a “thinking tool”. Lastly, the results show signs of emotions also being important elements for successful accommodation.     

On Developing College Students’Vocabulary

Vocabulary instruction in college English has always been far from satisfaction with teachers and students.Through the discussion of vocabulary teaching and some instructional approaches,this paper provides some implifications on vocabulary in struction and emphasizes the importance of carrying out reasearch.     

Vocational Education Students’ Generic Working Life Competencies: Developing a Self-Assessment Instrument

The current study reports on the process of developing a self-assessment instrument for vocational education students’ generic working life competencies. The instrument was developed based on a competence framework and in close collaboration with several vocational education teachers and intermediary organisations offering various human resource services. A first version of the questionnaire was presented to 26 students and 5 recent graduates who were asked to comment on the items. The pilot version of the questionnaire was completed by 826 students. Half of the data were used to explore the structure of the questionnaire (n?=?413) and the other half were used to confirm the structure (n?=?413). The results showed that 8 factors could be distinguished. Further analysis reduced this to 7 usable factors: empathy, listening, assertiveness, professional attitude, problem solving, cooperation ability and, planning and prioritising. The revised questionnaire containing 44 items was tested a second time to determine the stability and measurement invariance of the instrument. In total, 456 students from the first sample completed the questionnaire. The structure was confirmed and measurement invariance across students with and without working experience was established.     

Preservice Mathematics Teachers’ Selective Attention and Professional Knowledge–Based Reasoning About Students’ Statistical Thinking

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education - This study examined preservice mathematics teachers’ selective attention and knowledge-based reasoning as they viewed a statistics...     

The Effect of Na?ve Ideas on Students’ Reasoning About Electricity and Magnetism

Traditional multiple-choice concept inventories measure students?? critical conceptual understanding and are designed to reveal students?? na?ve or alternate ideas. The overall scores, however, give little information about the state of students?? knowledge and the consistency of reasoning. This study investigates whether students have consistent alternate models when reasoning about Newton??s third law principle in the context of electromagnetics (EM), and whether these possible models are related to conceptual change and overall performance. Students?? conceptual understanding is evaluated with The Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) multiple-choice test. The data (N?=?118) are collected from an undergraduate static field theory course at the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland. The data are analysed using frequency distributions, Fisher??s exact test, and One-Way ANOVA analysis. The study shows that every fifth student has a consistent or partially consistent alternate model of Newton??s third law principle in the context of EM prior to instruction. Students with this alternate model perform significantly (p?=?0.01) better on the overall concept test and are more likely to change conceptual understanding towards a correct model compared to students in an inconsistent mixed model state.     

Developing Greek Primary School Students’ Critical Thinking through an Approach of Teaching Science which Incorporates Aspects of History of Science

In this paper, the development of sixth grade students’ critical thinking skills in science courses is discussed relatively to the contribution of the integration of aspects of History of Science into instruction. Towards this direction a project on electromagnetism was designed and implemented aiming to engage primary school students in a critical examination of knowledge (importance, complexity and human implications) by generating argumentation and discussion in their classrooms. The “Test of Everyday Reasoning (TER)”, which targets the core critical thinking skills identified in “The Delphi Report” consensus, was translated and standardized for the Greek population in order to be used for the project’s assessment. A pre-post analysis was conducted for the experimental group and the control group. The encouraging results regarding critical thinking skills development are supportive to the integration of aspects of History of Science in science courses.     

Of Pigs and Men: Understanding Students’ Reasoning About the Use of Pigs as Donors for Xenotransplantation

Two important roles of education are to provide students with knowledge for their democratic participation in society and to provide knowledge for a future profession. In science education, students encounter values that may be in conflict with their worldview. Such conflicts may, for example, lead to constructive reflections as well as rejection of scientific knowledge and technology. Students’ ways of reasoning are important starting points for discussing problematic issues and may be crucial for constructive dialogues in the classroom. This study investigates students’ reasoning about conflicting values concerning the human-animal relationship exemplified by the use of genetically modified pigs as organ donors for xenotransplantation. Students’ reasoning is analyzed using Giddens’ concepts of disembedded and embedded practices in parallel with moral philosophical theories in a framework based on human-animal relationships. Thirteen students were interviewed and their stances categorized. Kantian deontological and classical utilitarian ethics were found within the patronage and the partnership models. These students appreciated expert knowledge but those using the partnership model could not accept xenotransplantation if pigs were to be killed. Students using care ethics did not appreciate expert knowledge since it threatened naturalness. The results suggest that stances against the use of scientific knowledge are more problematic than knowledge per se, and that conflicting stances have similarities that present opportunities for understanding and development of students’ argumentation skills for future participation in societal discourse on utilizing expert knowledge. Furthermore it is argued that science education could benefit from a higher awareness of the presence of different morals.     

Developing a Scale to Measure Students’ Attitudes toward Chemistry Lessons

Students’ attitudes toward chemistry lessons in school are important dependent variables in curriculum evaluation. Although a variety of instruments have been developed by researchers to evaluate student attitudes, they are plagued with problems such as the lack of theoretical rationale and of empirical evidence to support the construct validity of data. This paper describes a study of students’ attitudes toward chemistry lessons in Hong Kong secondary schools. One of the scales in the Test of Science‐Related Attitudes developed by Fraser was modified to form an Attitude Toward Chemistry Lessons Scale (ATCLS). The construction of the ATCLS was based on a theoretical model with four dimensions: liking for chemistry theory lessons, liking for chemistry laboratory work, evaluative beliefs about school chemistry, and behavioural tendencies to learn chemistry. The arguments for inclusion of these four dimensions are presented. The final version of ATCLS was administered to 954 students. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that there was a good fit between the hypothesised model and the observed data.     

Experiences in Sense Making: Health Science Students’ I-Positioning in an Online Philosophy of Science Course

This article reports on a qualitative study on the dialogical approach to learning in the context of higher education. The aim was to shed light on the I-Position and multivoicedness in students’ identity building and to provide empirical substantiation for these theoretical constructs, focusing especially on the connection between personal knowledge and theoretical knowledge. The study explored how health science students’ reflections on their work and discipline-related experiences provided resources for making personal sense of and understanding the subject studied. The students took an online course on the philosophy of science. To study students’ internal and external dialogue in terms of multivoicedness in their sense-making processes I combined a discourse analysis with a dialogical approach. The results showed that in reflecting on their experiences in light of different scientific approaches, the students became engaged in dialogues with different voices, thereby experiencing tensions in their professional positioning. The reasoning tasks gave rise to internal dialogue, involving negotiation between different I-Positions of the self or heterodialogue with the texts. These identity negotiations were manifested in refining, strengthening, and reconstructing professional and scientific I-Positions and in sharing and constructing a We-Position.     

Students’ Emotive Reasoning Through Place-Based Environmental Socioscientific Issues

Research in Science Education - Engaging environmental socioscientific issues (SSI) requires navigating diverse positions regarding people and nature. This qualitative investigation determined how...     

Insights into Students’ Geometric Reasoning Relating to Prisms

Whilst spatial reasoning skills have been found to predict mathematical achievement, little is known about how primary (elementary) students’ conceptual understanding of three-dimensional objects develops. In this article, we report a qualitative study and the impact of rich learning experiences on 48 Years 3–6 students’ geometric reasoning relating to prisms. A one-to-one task-based interview, refined by the researchers, was used to assess student learning. Coding and data analysis were informed by our previous research. The findings reveal noticeable shifts in students’ knowledge of and reasoning about prisms, their ability to construct and describe prisms with geometric language, and their visualisation and spatial structuring skills. The implications of these findings highlight the importance of teachers’ choice of tasks that require students to compose and decompose three-dimensional (3D) objects; compare 3D objects through physical and mental transformations; take different perspectives; and visualise and reason geometrically.

     

‘Boys Press All the Buttons and Hope It Will Help’: Upper Secondary School Teachers’ Gendered Conceptions About Students’ Mathematical Reasoning

Previous results show that Swedish upper secondary school teachers attribute gender to cases describing different types of mathematical reasoning. The purpose of this study was to investigate how these teachers gender stereotype aspects of students’ mathematical reasoning by studying the symbols that were attributed to boys and girls, respectively, in a written questionnaire. The results from the content analysis showed that girls were attributed gender symbols including insecurity, use of standard methods and imitative reasoning, and boys were assigned symbols such as multiple strategies especially on the calculator, guessing and chance-taking.     

Effect of a Diagram on Primary Students’ Understanding About Electric Circuits

Research in Science Education - This article reports on the effect of using a diagram to develop primary students’ conceptual understanding about electric circuits. Diagrammatic...