Assessing students’ ability in performing scientific inquiry: instruments for measuring science skills in primary education

Background With the increased attention on the implementation of inquiry activities in primary science classrooms, a growing interest has emerged in assessing students’ science skills. Research has thus far been concerned with the limitations and advantages of different test formats to assess students’ science skills.

Purpose This study explores the construction of different instruments for measuring science skills by categorizing items systematically on three subskill levels (science-specific, thinking, metacognition) as well as on different steps of the empirical cycle.

Sample The study included 128 fifth and sixth grade students from seven primary schools in the Netherlands.

Design and method Seven measures were used: a paper-and-pencil test (PPT), three performance assessments, two metacognitive self-report tests, and a test used as an indication of general cognitive ability.

Results Reliabilities of all tests indicate sufficient internal consistency. Positive correlations between the PPT and the three performance assessments show that the different tests measure a common core of similar skills thus providing evidence for convergent validity. Results also show that students’ ability to perform scientific inquiry is significantly related to general cognitive ability. No relationship was found between the measure of general metacognitive ability and either the PPT or the three performance assessments. By contrast, the metacognitive self-report test constructed to obtain information about the application of metacognitive abilities in performing scientific inquiry, shows significant – although small – correlations with two of the performance assessments. Further explorations reveal sufficient scale reliabilities on subskill and step level.

Conclusions The present study shows that science skills can be measured reliably by categorizing items on subskill and step level. Additional diagnostic information can be obtained by examining mean scores on both subskill and step level. Such measures are not only suitable for assessing students’ mastery of science skills but can also provide teachers with diagnostic information to adapt their instructions and foster the learning process of their students.     

Resident rats’ aggression toward intruders

A study was performed in which attacks by four different types of “resident” rat (males housed with fertile females, males housed with sterile females, paired males, and isolated males) on six different types of intruder (isolated males, grouped males, castrated males, isolated females, grouped females, and ovariectomized females) were investigated. The objective was to study features of resident and intruder rats that would allow the designing of an aggression test that used a minimum of animals and produced a rapid behavioral response. In some combinations of residents and intruders, attack was generated within a 10-min test period. Isolated resident males attacked as much as males housed with females; however, paired rats showed only low incidences of attack. The fertility of the female partner did not influence the male’s aggressiveness. Most male attacks were directed towards like-sexed intruders. Only isolated males differentiated between the different treatment types of male intruder, attacking group-housed and castrated rats less intensely than isolates. Of the females, only those that were fertile produced significant amounts of attack behavior and almost exclusively attacked female intruders. Group-housed intruder females received more attacks than isolates. The results suggest optimal conditions for generating two models of attack behavior in the laboratory rat.     

A research strategy for the dynamic study of students' concepts and problem solving strategies using science software

Microcomputers and appropriate software have the potential to help students learn. They can also serve as appropriate media for investigating how students learn. In this article we describe a research strategy examining learning and behavior when students interacted with microcomputers and software. Results from two preliminary studies illustrate the strategy. A major feature of the strategy included recording students interacting with microcomputer software interfaced with a VCR. The VCR recorded the video output from a microcomputer and students' verbal commentary via microphone input. This technique allowed students' comments about their observations, perceptions, predictions, explanations, and decisions to be recorded simultaneously with their computer input and the display on the microcomputer monitor. The research strategy described can provide important information about cognitive and affective behaviors of students engaged in using instructional software. Research studies utilizing this strategy can enhance our understanding of how students develop and employ important concepts and scientific relationships, how students develop problem-solving skills and solve problems, and how they interact with instructional software. Results of such studies have important implications for teaching and for the design of instructional software.     

Adult learners and higher education: Factors influencing participation or nonparticipation decisions

Information regarding why adults choose to participate in higher education is necessary if educators are to provide meaningful programs for these learners. This study was designed and conducted to explore the higher education needs and interests of adults. Factor analysis of interested adults' responses identified four major factors which could influence an adult's decision to participate or not to participate in higher education. Based on the nature of the items comprising each, the factors were designated self-development goal, affective barrier, career goal, and situation barrier.     

Childhood and adult sexual abuse, rumination on sadness, and dysphoria

OBJECTIVE: The study addressed the hypothesis that adults reporting sexual abuse are more likely to exhibit a general tendency to ruminate on sadness. The relations between reported abuse, rumination on sadness, and dysphoria were also examined. METHOD: Undergraduate students (101 women and 100 men) reported on childhood and adult sexual abuse and instances of intimidation, as well as completing the Rumination on Sadness Scale [Journal of Personality Assessment 75 (2000) 404] and the Beck Depression Inventory [Depression: Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects, Harper & Row, New York]. RESULTS: Participants who reported more abuse were more likely to report rumination on sadness. Both reports of abuse and of rumination were linked to dysphoria. Overall, causal modeling indicated that two models were equally effective in accounting for the data: (a) victimization leads to dysphoria, with this relation being partly mediated by rumination and (b) victimization leads to dysphoria, which in turn leads to rumination. Both models are consistent with prior research. For men considered separately, both models were equally effective. For women, model a best accounted for the data. CONCLUSION: One of the pathways by which victimization may lead to depression in adulthood is by encouraging the development of a tendency to ruminate on sadness. Alternatively, victimization may lead to depression by other means, and the experienced depression or dysphoria may foster rumination.     

Using discriminant analysis to predict faculty rank

Past attempts to predict the salary of faculty have been flawed by the use of rank, a potential source of bias, but removing rank from the equation seriously reduces prediction. This research studies the degree of bias in rank. Discriminant analysis produced a solution that correctly predicted rank 69% of the time for the 1083 faculty members used in the study. Among teaching and research faculty, there was a significant relationship between the direction of prediction error and gender. For women, the number of times they were predicted to have a rank higher than their actual rank exceeded the opposite condition by 2 1/2 times; for men, there was a slight tendency for the opposite. Methods were suggested for using the information administratively to correct problems. Further, recommendations are made to use the results to study salary-bias problems.     

Prior knowledge and its activation in elementary classroom discourse

The purpose of the current study was to: (a) examine the frequency of prior knowledge (PK) activation in elementary classrooms while students were engaged with text, (b) investigate the relevance of students’ responses to teacher prompts, (c) explore the nature of teachers’ and students’ prior knowledge activation utterances, and (d) investigate whether there were discernible routines in the interactions between teachers and students when activating PK. Participants were 6 teachers and 99 students from a private elementary school in the mid-Atlantic. An analysis of classroom discourse suggested that teachers infrequently prompted students to activate their prior knowledge during reading. Yet, when teachers did prompt PK, they asked about a prior lesson most often, or about a specific text, students’ world knowledge, or their personal experiences. Students then responded to their teachers according to the prompted referential frame. Additionally, four routines of classroom discourse were identified in the data including nonresponsive, question–answer, simple feedback, and interaction routines, with less elaborate routines being most common and primarily occurring at the beginning of lessons.

     

Access to what? Mission differentiation and academic stratification in U.S. public higher education

Academic policy initiatives have long been apowerful lever for mission differentiationwithin U.S. public higher education. Althoughthe higher education literature has examinedbasic issues in the design of public systems,the tension between access and differentiationhas not been explored. Drawing uponcomparative case studies of public highereducation in Massachusetts and New York, thisarticle examines recent policy initiatives toterminate academic programs, eliminate remedialeducation, and promote honors colleges withineach state system. The analysis depicts howthese policies contribute to increasedstratification of programs and students withina state system as well as within particularcampuses in a system. The authors argue thatpolicy analysis in higher education shoulddevelop a more refined conceptualization ofaccess that examines the cumulative impact ofcontemporary policies on the stratification ofstudent opportunity.     

Retention of a running response following appetitive acquisition,extinction, and discrimination

In Experiment 1, hungry rats received 30 rewarded runway trials and then either extinction trials followed by retention tests or just retention tests. Different groups were tested after retention intervals of 1 min, 1, 3, or 24 h, or 30 days. Retention of extinction training was a nonmonotonic, cubic function of time for the early portion of the response chain, with good retention at 1 min and 3 h and little retention at 1 h, 24 h, or 30 days. In the latter portions of the response chain, retention of extinction decreased monotonically with time. Retention following reward-only training varied little in time, though slight losses occurred after 30 days. Experiments 2–3 differed from Experiment 1 in imposing nonchoice discrimination training (reward vs. nonreward) instead of extinction following 30 rewarded trials. After different time intervals (.017, .75, 1.25, 3, and 24 h in Experiment 1; and .017, 1, and 3 h in Experiment 2), retention tests revealed poorest discrimination at intermediate intervals in the initial portion of the response chain, i.e., a Kamin effect appeared. The deficit seemed the result of a loss of response suppression to the cue that signaled nonreward. In latter segments of the response chain, a Kamin effect tended not to appear. Implications for a number of observations and theoretical views are noted.     

The Adidactic Interaction with the Procedures of Peers in the Transition from Arithmetic to Algebra: A Milieu for the Emergence of New Questions

The purpose of the present article is to give an account of the emergence of knowledge pertaining to the transition from arithmetic to algebra in the course of a debate in a grade 7 classroom. This debate follows two other instances of work: (1) the adidactic interaction between each student and a given problem, (2) the adidactic interaction of each student with the procedures generated by other students during stage 1. The two kinds of processes – adaptation to a milieu and social interactions – play a critical role in the change of “rationality” required for the move from arithmetic to algebra. Both the design of the initial mathematical problem given to the students and the organization of the interactions leading to the debate under study in this article are based on this hypothesis. The research presented in this article is set in a broader work of didactic engineering that aims at studying didactic conditions for making a connection between arithmetic practices and algebraic practices.