The disposition toward critical thinking of high school and university science students: an interintra Israeli-Italian Study

The California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) was used to assess the disposition of Israeli and Italian high school and university science students toward critical thinking. The study sought to establish base-lines for these groups as well as quantifying the differences between two national populations. Significant differences between the Israeli and Italian high school science students in the total score and those of five subscales of the CCTDI have been found, the largest on the OpenMindedness and Self-Confidence subscales. The overall scores of high school and university science students on the CCTDI in both countries were essentially the same, with quite a similar pattern in the corresponding disposition profiles. Although the CCTDI can be reliably used for establishing base-line differences between science student populations, the effect of a specific approach to teaching (e.g. HOCS-orientation vs traditional) on the stability or change of this aspect of critical thinking remains an open question.     

The Disposition of Eleventh-Grade Science Students Toward Critical Thinking

The California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) was used to assess the disposition of Israeli eleventh-grade science students toward critical thinking according to school type affiliate, scientific level, and gender. Our findings, strongly support (a) the establishment of a baseline reference for disposition toward critical thinking of high school science students; (b) the application of the CCTDI in the context of ongoing science education in different settings; and finally (c) the reliable use of the CCTDI in future research aiming at evaluating the effectiveness of critical thinking (CT) and higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS) oriented instructional goals.     

Student Self-Assessment in HOCS Science Examinations: Is There a Problem?

A specially-designed self-assessment questionnaire (SAQHOCS), containing higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS)-type questions, was administered to 71 biology majors, enrolled in a four-year college program. The gap between students' self-assessment marking, and that of their HOCS-biased teachers (the authors), is accounted for by the prevailing LOCS-orientation and the testing culture—a total separation between testing and learning—in contemporary science teaching. The majority of the students in the study evaluated themselves as capable of self-assessment, and felt reasonably confident in doing so. They were quite reserved as far as the applicability of the self-assessment method to nonalgorithmic (correct/incorrect) questions is concerned. The results of this study suggest that the potential for student self-assessment within college science teaching and learning exists. However, still a great purposed effort in HOCS-oriented teaching and learning is required in order for the student self-assessment practice to become a routine integral component of HOCS science examinations.     

Model-Based Teaching and Learning with BioLogica™: What Do They Learn? How Do They Learn? How Do We Know?

This paper describes part of a project called Modeling Across the Curriculum which is a large-scale research study in 15 schools across the United States. The specific data presented and discussed here in this paper is based on BioLogica, a hypermodel, interactive environment for learning genetics, which was implemented in multiple classes in eight high schools. BioLogica activities, data logging, and assessments were refined across this series of implementations. All students took a genetics content knowledge pre- and posttests. Traces of students' actions and responses to computer-based tasks were electronically collected (via a log file function) and systematically analyzed. An intensive 3-day field test involving 24 middle school students served to refine methods and create narrative profiles of students' learning experiences, outcomes, and interactions with BioLogica. We report on one high school implementation and the field test as self-contained studies to document the changes and the outcomes at different phases of development. A discussion of design changes concludes this paper.     

Attitude modification in health education through an interventive,antismoking program incorporated within traditional science curriculum

The effectiveness of a smoking-prevention program—incorporated within a traditional science curriculum—was assessed in terms of attitude modification in such categories as health, peer pressure, and social image as related to smoking. The study indicates that most relevant attitudes, the emotionally intense in particular, are modifiable in the desired direction, although the changes are small. Some gender differences in the recorded changes suggest a difference in the dynamics of the response to smoking intervention between male and female high school students. A desired change of attitude frequency distributions (e.g., from less extreme to more extreme responses) has also been found. In addition, the tendency of the experimental students to actively act against smoking within family circles increased, although not significantly. All the above was accompanied by a decrease in the number of smokers in the experimental group and a significant increase in the number of smokers in the control group. These results suggest that it is educationally possible to modify attitudes in health education in the desired direction by means of a properly designed interdisciplinary science curricular unit implemented within ongoing traditional science teaching.     

What is Normal Anyway? Therapy for Epistemological Anxiety

This paper presents two case studies of learners attempting to make sense of the concept of normal distribution — in particular, why physical phenomena such as height fall into normal distributions. The notion of epistemological anxiety is advanced as being the source of the difficulties learners have in making sense of normal distributions. The framework of Connected Mathematics is used to analyze the learners' coming to understanding of normal distributions and as a source of therapeutic intervention for the epistemological anxiety. As both a symbolizing medium and an aid to analysis, one learner is provided with an object-based parallel modeling language (OBPML) with which the learner can formulate computational hypotheses about the local probability rules that lead to the emergence of a global distribution. Through the investigation, supported by the OBPML, the learner makes connections between the micro-rules of probability and the resultant (macro-) statistical distributions. Conclusions are then drawn about the features of a Connected Mathematics learning environment that enable confrontation with epistemological anxiety and the features of modeling languages that enable learners to conduct a successful probability investigation.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Science and Technology Education in the STES Context in Primary Schools: What Should It Take?

Striving for sustainability requires a paradigm shift in conceptualization, thinking, research and education, particularly concerning the science-technology-environment-society (STES) interfaces. Consequently, ‘STES literacy’ requires the development of students’ question asking, critical, evaluative system thinking, decision making and problem solving capabilities, in this context, via innovative implementable higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS)-promoting teaching, assessment and learning strategies. The corresponding paradigms shift in science and technology education, such as from algorithmic teaching to HOCS-promoting learning is unavoidable, since it reflects the social pressure, worldwide, towards more accountable socially- and environmentally-responsible sustainable development. Since most of the STES- and, recently STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics)-related research in science education has been focused on secondary and tertiary education, it is vital to demonstrate the relevance of this multifaceted research to the science and technology teaching in primary schools. Our longitudinal STES education-related research and curriculum development point to the very little contribution, if any, of the traditional science teaching to “know”, to the development of students’ HOCS capabilities. On the other hand, there appears to be a ‘general agreement’, that the contemporary dominant lower-order cognitive skills (LOCS) teaching and assessment strategies applied in science and technology education are, in fact, restraining the natural curiosity and creativity of primary school (and younger?) pupils/children. Since creative thinking as well as evaluative system thinking, decision making, problem solving and … transfer constitute an integral part of the HOCS conceptual framework, the appropriateness of “HOCS promoting” teaching, and the relevance of science and technology, to elementary education in the STES context, is apparent. Therefore, our overriding guiding purpose was to provide any evidence-based research to the vital LOCS-to-HOCS paradigm shift in STES education. The findings of, and conclusions derived from our longitudinal research on HOCS development within STES-oriented and traditional education, suggest that both—science and technology education (STE) and STES education—are relevant to primary school education. Based on this, what it should take to insure success in this context, is thoroughly discussed.