共查询到20条相似文献，搜索用时 187 毫秒
1.
Ying Tao Mary Colette Oliver Grady Jane Venville 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(6):879-901
Children have formal science instruction from kindergarten in Australia and from Year 3 in China. The purpose of this research was to explore the impact that different approaches to primary science curricula in China and Australia have on children's conceptual understanding of science. Participants were Year 3 children from three schools of high, medium and low socio-economic status in Hunan Province, central south China (n?=?135) and three schools of similar socio-economic status in Western Australia (n?=?120). The students' understanding was assessed by a science quiz, developed from past Trends in Mathematics and Science Study science released items for primary children. In-depth interviews were carried out to further explore children's conceptual understanding of living things, the Earth and floating and sinking. The results revealed that Year 3 children from schools of similar socio-economic status in the two countries had similar conceptual understandings of life science, earth science and physical science. Further, in both countries, the higher the socio-economic status of the school, the better the students performed on the science quiz and in interviews. Some idiosyncratic strengths and weaknesses were observed, for example, Chinese Year 3 children showed relative strength in classification of living things, and Australian Year 3 children demonstrated better understanding of floating and sinking, but children in both countries were weak in applying and reasoning with complex concepts in the domain of earth science. The results raise questions about the value of providing a science curriculum in early childhood if it does not make any difference to students' conceptual understanding of science. 相似文献
2.
Miriam Leuchter Henrik Saalbach Ilonca Hardy 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(10):1751-1771
Research on learning and instruction of science has shown that learning environments applied in preschool and primary school rarely makes use of structured learning materials in problem-based environments although these are decisive quality features for promoting conceptual change and scientific reasoning within early science learning. We thus developed and implemented a science learning environment for children in the first years of schooling which contains structured learning materials with the goal of supporting conceptual change concerning the understanding of the floating and sinking of objects and fostering students' scientific reasoning skills. In the present implementation study, we aim to provide a best-practice example of early science learning. The study was conducted with a sample of 15 classes of the first years of schooling and a total of 244 children. Tests were constructed to measure children's conceptual understanding before and after the implementation. Our results reveal a decrease in children's misconceptions from pretest to posttest. After the curriculum, the children were able to produce significantly more correct predictions about the sinking or floating of objects than before the curriculum and also relative to a control group. Moreover, due to the intervention, the explanations given for their predictions implied a more elaborated concept of material kinds. All in all, a well-structured curriculum promoting comparison and scientific reasoning by means of inquiry learning was shown to support children's conceptual change. 相似文献
3.
Diane Silva Pimentel Katherine L. McNeill 《International Journal of Science Education》2016,38(12):2047-2068
The dialogue that occurs in science classrooms has been the subject of research for many decades. Most studies have focused on the actual discourse that occurs and the role of the teacher in guiding the discourse. This case study explored the neglected perspective of secondary science students and their beliefs about their role in class discussions. The study participants (N? =? 45) were students in one of the three differentially tracked chemistry classes taught by the same teacher. Findings about the differences that exist among students from different academic tracks are reported. While it seems that epistemological beliefs focusing on content are common for the students in this study, the students' social framing in the different tracks is important to consider when teachers attempt to transition to more dialogic forms of discourse. Some key findings of this study are (a) students’ beliefs that science is a body of facts to be learned influenced the factors they deemed important for whole-class discussion, (b) students from the lower-level track who typically were associated with lower socioeconomic status were more likely to view their role as passive, and (c) students’ comfort level with the members of the class seemed to influence their decisions to participate in class discussions. 相似文献
4.
Facilitating students’ transition from less to more mathematically productive engagement in discussions is an important area of investigation. Research on mathematical whole-class discussions has consistently identified facilitating students' mathematical autonomy as a central component of this transition. Additionally, research commonly infers such transitions take time to manifest. The present study examined students' perceived mathematical autonomy and perceived engagement in mathematical discussions over a half year of school. Using hierarchical linear growth-curve modeling, the authors found that although it may take time for students to transition into more mathematically productive engagement in discussions, it may be the development of their mathematical autonomy, rather than mere exposure over time, that facilitates this transition. 相似文献
5.
Maria Varelas 《科学教学研究杂志》1996,33(3):229-263
A conceptual framework is developed incorporating the dialectic of science (developing theories and collecting and analyzing data) and the dialectic of education (bringing preexisting sociocultural elements to the students and letting the students develop their own understandings). The theory—data dialectic is specified as including both the inductive and deductive directions. Discourse is seen as central to both the activity of science and the educative process, and hence as the bridge between them. In the context of this framework, an empirical study was designed and executed in a seventh-grade science class. This article presents and analyzes data focusing on (a) how teacher and students moved between theory and data in a unit on sinking and floating, designed to engage the students mostly in the deductive direction of scientific activity; and (b) how the dialectic of education was played out in the classroom as teacher and students were engaged in (a). A qualitative, interpretive methodology was used. Some of the complexities that this science class encountered as teacher and students attempted to engage in the deductive mode of scientific activity are presented and discussed. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 相似文献
6.
Juli K. Dixon Lisa A. Egendoerfer Taylar Clements 《Teaching and Teacher Education》2009,25(8):1067-1076
In an attempt to examine dialogue within a second grade classroom, students were encouraged to participate in whole-class mathematics discussions without raising their hands before speaking. Beneficial social and sociomathematical norms developed in place of this traditional social norm. Effects of this change on the dialogue and written mathematical explanations of a class of second grade students are described. Focus was placed on student participation in whole-class discussions. The study helped to determine the effects of student-centered dialogue on students' mathematical explanations and justifications as demonstrated in the students' discussions, participation, and written expression related to their mathematics learning. 相似文献
7.
Yin‐Kum Law 《Journal of Research in Reading》2008,31(4):379-403
This study investigated how constructive activities are involved when Chinese students are performing reading tasks that require deeper levels of understanding. Forty students from Grade 5 (19 boys and 21 girls), and 42 students from Grade 6 (20 boys and 22 girls) participated in this study. To reveal the children's constructive processes in reading, they were asked to think aloud while responding to a text. Analyses of the children's protocols identified five levels of constructive activity. Analyses further indicated that the Grade 6 children performed better than the Grade 5 children, and skilled readers outperformed less skilled readers in higher levels of constructivist activity and text understanding tasks. Implications of the important roles of constructivist activity in children's learning from texts were discussed. 相似文献
8.
Mijung Kim 《International Journal of Science Education》2016,38(1):51-72
Research on young children's reasoning show the complex relationships of knowledge, theories, and evidence in their decision-making and problem solving. Most of the research on children's reasoning skills has been done in individualized and formal research settings, not collective classroom environments where children often engage in learning and reasoning together to solve classroom problems. This study posits children's reasoning as a collective social activity that can occur in science classrooms. The study examined how children process their reasoning within the context of Grade 2/3 science classrooms and how the process of collectivity emerges from classroom interactions and dialogue between children as they attempt to solve their classroom problems. The study findings suggest that children's reasoning involves active evaluation of theories and evidence through collective problem solving, with consensus being developed through dialogical reasoning. 相似文献
9.
Heidi B. Meindertsma Marijn W. G. van Dijk Henderien W. Steenbeek Paul L. C. van Geert 《Mind, Brain, and Education》2014,8(3):149-158
Intraindividual variability is a key component in explaining children's development and learning. Studying this type of variability on the micro‐timescale can help us understand real‐time constructive processes and the subsequent long‐term development. The aim of this article is to study the process of children's understanding of floating and sinking during one single‐task session. A total of 38 kindergartners were asked to explain the floating or sinking of 14 different objects. The results reveal that the majority of children showed a high degree of intraindividual variability. In general, most children had a decrease in variability of both content and complexity of explanations during one task session and stabilized in both complexity and content toward the end of the task. The analyses indicated that hypothesis testing was not related to changes in children's explanations. These results can be the starting point for further research about change on different, nested timescales. 相似文献
10.
This study explored Ridley and Novak's (1983) hypothesis that gender differences in science achievement are due to differences in rote and meaningful learning modes. To test this hypothesis, we examined gender differences in fifth- and sixth-grade students' (N = 213) self-reports of confidence, motivation goals (task mastery, ego, and work avoidance), and learning strategies (active and superficial) in whole-class and small-group science lessons. Overall, the results revealed few gender differences. Compared with girls, boys reported greater confidence in their science abilities. Average-achieving girls reported greater use of meaningful learning strategies than did their male counterparts, whereas low-ability boys reported a stronger mastery orientation than did low-ability girls. The results further showed that students report greater confidence and mastery motivation in small-group than whole-class lessons. In contrast, students reported greater work avoidance in whole-class than small-group lessons. In general, the findings provide little support for Ridley and Novak's hypothesis that girls tend to engage in rote-level learning in science classes. Differences in self-reports of motivation and strategy-use patterns were more strongly related to the student's ability level and to the structure of learning activities (small group vs. whole class) than to gender. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 相似文献
11.
12.
A considerable body of evidence highlights how inquiry-based science can enhance students' epistemic and conceptual understanding of scientific concepts, principles, and theories. However, little is known about how students view themselves as learners of science. In this paper, we explore primary children's images of doing science in school and how they compare themselves with ‘real’ scientists. Data were collected through the use of a questionnaire, drawing activity, and interviews from 161 Grade 4 (ages 9–10) students in Singapore. Results indicate that ‘doing science as conducting hands-on investigations’, ‘doing science as learning from the teacher’, ‘doing science as completing the workbook’, and ‘doing science as a social process’ are the images of learning science in school that most of the students held. In addition, students reported that they need to be well behaved first and foremost, while scientists are more likely to work alone and do things that are dangerous. Moreover, students often viewed themselves as ‘acting like a scientist’ in class, especially when they were doing experiments. Nevertheless, some students reported that they were unlike a scientist because they believed that scientists work alone with dangerous experiments and do not need to listen to the teacher and complete the workbook. These research findings further confirm the earlier argument that young children can make distinctions between school science and ‘real’ science. This study suggests that the teaching of science as inquiry and by inquiry will shape how students view their classroom experiences and their attitudes towards science. 相似文献
13.
It is clear from the extant literature that gender inequities exist in a myriad of ways in science classrooms. Past research, however, has been conducted solely from researchers' observations and has neglected to investigate students' awareness of and reactions to their own experiences. Hence, this study focused on students' perceptions of gender differences in instructional activity and talk about that activity in physics and honors physics classes. Data analysis showed that although teachers may be unaware of gender inequities, students of both sexes are not unaware of such inequities. Females explained their fears of offering their opinions and participating in activities like labs and small-group or whole-class discussions. Differential language patterns were found for males and females, particularly when discussion was structured and rewarded for refutation. Explanations are offered for these disparities and suggestions are given for addressing gender bias in science classrooms. It has been well documented that science classrooms are not gender fair (Bazler & Simonis, 1991; Bianchini, 1993; Tobin, 1988). Teachers, texts, and the forms of instruction they perpetuate contribute to gender inequities in science instruction. For example, research tracing changes in science textbooks over time has shown that current texts have failed to eliminate barriers to women in science (Bianchini, 1993). Science textbooks are criticized for their unequal treatment of genders, with illustrations, photos, and texts of males far outnumbering those of females, despite the approximate 50/50 male/female ratio of our population (Bazler & Simonis, 1991). In addition to the proclivity of science textbooks to favor males, researchers speculate that the tendency for boys to achieve higher than girls in science may be a result of more opportunity to engage in academic tasks (Tobin & Garnett, 1987). Their behavior shows that teachers have differential expectations for students' responses in activities like teacher-led discussion. In teacher-led, whole-class discussion, boys are spoken to more frequently and are asked more higher-order questions (Becker, 1991; Hall & Sadler, 1982). Teachers in science classrooms elaborate more on males' responses than females' responses in large-group discussion of scientific concepts (Jones & Wheatley, 1990). © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 相似文献
14.
This paper, through discussion of a teaching intervention at two secondary schools in Hong Kong, demonstrates the learning advancement brought about by group work and dissects the facilitating role of teachers in collaborative discussions. One-hundred and fifty-two Secondary Two (Grade 8) students were divided into three pedagogical groups, namely ‘whole-class teaching’, ‘self-directed group work’ and ‘teacher-supported group work’ groups, and engaged in peer-review, team debate, group presentation and reflection tasks related to a junior secondary science topic (i.e. current electricity). Pre- and post-tests were performed to evaluate students’ scientific conceptions, alongside collected written responses and audio-recorded discussions. The results indicate that students achieved greater cognitive growth when they engaged in cooperative learning activities, the interactive and multi-sided argumentative nature of which is considered to apply particularly well to science education and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development framework. Group work learning is also found to be most effective when teachers play a role in navigating students during the joint construction of conceptual knowledge. 相似文献
15.
In this mixed-methods study, we investigated how doctoral students used asynchronous online discussions that were added to a face-to-face research methods course. We focused specifically on what sociocognitive tools the students used and what they thought about the value of the online discussions for their learning. Our data included three online whole-class discussions from the course and students’ self-evaluations, which they completed three times during the semester. Our findings support the usefulness of online discussions in providing a site where students could draw on a rich repertoire of tools and strategies as well as on the knowledge of others to enhance their thinking and understanding of theory and research. 相似文献
16.
Liyanage Devangi H. Perera 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(18):3021-3041
Although countries worldwide are emphasizing the importance of science education for technological development and global economic competition, comparative findings from standardized international student assessments reveal a huge gap in science scores between developed and developing countries. Certain developed economies too have made little progress in raising science achievement over the past decade. Despite school improvement being placed high on the policy agenda, the results of such actions have been poor. Therefore, there is a need to explore additional ways in which science achievement can be enhanced. This study focuses on the family and examines whether parents' attitudes towards science (how much they value science and the importance they place on it) can influence their children's science achievement. Individual- and school-level data are obtained from the Program for International Student Assessment 2006 survey for 15 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD countries. Hierarchical linear modelling is employed to estimate the equations. The findings indicate that parents' attitudes towards science have a positive and statistically significant effect on science achievement, after controlling for other important student- and school-level variables. Moreover, students from poor backgrounds appear to benefit from more positive parental science attitudes as much as students from high socioeconomic status, such that equality of student achievement is not affected. This study recommends that schools and teachers encourage parents to play a more pro-active role in their children's science education, as well as educate parents about the importance of science and strategies that can be adopted to support their children's science learning. 相似文献
17.
E. D. Duryea 《College Teaching》2013,61(2):65-67
A large literature establishes the benefits of discussions for stimulating student engagement and critical thinking skills. However, we know considerably less about the differential effects of various discussion environments on student learning. In this study, we assess student perceptions concerning the benefits of discussions in an upper-level political science class. We compare how students evaluated discussions in the whole-class environment, in small face-to-face discussion groups, and in online discussion groups. Overall, according to student surveys, small discussion groups elicited the highest student satisfaction and scored highest in critical thinking skills, while online discussions provided the best forum to express thoughts. While they did not favor all-class discussions, students reported that this format, too, provided benefits. 相似文献
18.
Use of First‐hand and Second‐hand Data in Science: Does data type influence classroom conversations?
In this paper, we examine how students discuss and interpret data and whether these actions vary depending on the type of data they analyse. More specifically, we are interested in whether students perform differently when analysing first‐hand data, which they collect themselves, compared with second‐hand data provided to them. Our data analysis focused on two classrooms using two different curriculum units, chemistry in Grade 7 and biology in Grade 8, collected during the 2002/03 school year from a Mid‐western urban middle school in the USA. We analysed classroom videotape associated with lessons in which students discussed first‐hand and second‐hand data both in small group settings and full class discussions. We found the two types of data offer different benefits and limitations, suggesting that both types of data are important for students to work with as they develop skills in scientific inquiry practices. We discuss the characteristics of classroom discussions around different data sources as well as implications for the design of curriculum materials, instructional environments, and student learning in science. 相似文献
19.
20.
Wolff-Michael Roth 《科学教学研究杂志》1996,33(7):709-736
This article describes a case study of an expert teacher's questioning strategies during an open-inquiry engineering curriculum in a Grade 4/5 classroom. The data sources collected over a 13-week period included videotaped whole-class and small-group teacher-student interactions, debriefing meetings after each lesson, interviews with observing elementary teachers, and stimulated recall sessions with both teachers present in the class. A holistic, sociolinguistic framework was used to analyze the transcribed videotapes. The analysis provides evidence for the complexity of questioning that is characterized by the interactions of context and content of, and response and reactions to questions. The teacher's competence in questioning was related to her discursive competence in the subject-matter domain; but question content was always mediated by the contingencies of discourse context and response and reaction patterns. The study also provides evidence that questioning is a complex practice which cannot be appropriated easily, a finding which implies a fundamental change in the professional preparation and development of science teachers. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 相似文献