ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280902

出版商:Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company    

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280903

出版商:Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company    

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractAn analysis and comparison of everyday life and the domain of science reveals significant differences in their goals and in the cognitive means used to attain these goals. Students' lack of awareness of these differences can lead to pervasive learning difficulties in their study of science. Thus many students (a) have erroneous conceptions of scientific goals, (b) import goals and ways of thinking which are effective in everyday life but inadequate in science, and (c) devise ways of thinking ill suited to science. Additional complications arise because science taught in schools often differs both from actual science and from everyday life. Students' learning difficulties are thus increased because scientific goals are distorted and scientific ways of thinking are inadequately taught. The preceding analysis suggests some empirical investigations and instructional improvements.

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280904

出版商:Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company    

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThis study characterized students' views of science as falling into three groups: static, mixed, and dynamic. Those who view science as static assert that science consists of a group of facts that are best memorized. Those who view science as dynamic believe that scientific ideas develop and change and that the best way to learn these ideas is to understand what they mean and how they are related. Students with mixed beliefs hold some static and some dynamic views. This study also examined the relationship between views of science and acquisition of integrated understanding of thermodynamics. We found that students with dynamic views acquired more integrated understanding than those with static views. Participants were 153 middle school students following the Computer as Lab Partner (CLP) curriculum. Students conducted both simulated and real‐time experiments using an electronic notebook during the 12 weeks of instruction. Interventions encouraging students to integrate their experiences resulted in 89% of students successfully predicting the outcome of an everyday situation and 77% of students being able to succcessfully explain their prediction. We investigated how students preferred to integrate their experiences and found that some students preferred a concrete prototypic locus for integration while others preferred a more abstract principled locus of integratio

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280905

出版商:Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company    

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractIn contrast to predictions or actions, explanations require articulating a model that accounts for the physical phenomenon. Therefore, examination of children's explanations provides a more powerful window onto their developing understanding of causality. This study investigates children's developing causal knowledge, by analyzing changes in the content and form of the explanations they generate, across the age span of three to nine years. The study aims to examine the balance of incremental versus fundamental change and the forms each takes in children coming to understand one physical domain, the working of gears. Thirty‐two subjects, ages, 3, 5, 7, and 9, participated in the study. The experimenter elicited each subject's predictions and explanations about what would happen when you turned the knob in a series of gear configurations. Age trends in the explanation type subjects generated revealed broad progress in their understanding of causality within the domain and a complex picture of fundamental and incremental changes. Parsing the sequence of explanation types at points of fundamental change, three phases of development emerged: (a) function of the object as explanation, (b) connections as explanation, and (c) mechanistic explanation. Analysis of development from one phase to the next revealed two forms of fundamental change: radical substitution (where one explanation is supplanted by the next) and transforming incorporation (where one explanation forms the basis for the next and yet is itself transformed in the context of the fundamentally new way of conceptualizing causality). Analysis of development within the individual phases revealed incremental change primarily in the forms of differentiation and decompositio

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280906

出版商:Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company    

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThirty‐three 7th‐grade mixed‐ability students and 22 11th‐grade honors students were interviewed about their conceptions of models and their use in science. Three analyses are presented in order to: (1) portray the character of students' spontaneous answers; (2) examine the criteria students use to decide whether specific items are models or not; and (3) describe how different general levels of understanding models reflect different epistemological viewpoints. Four experts were also interviewed for purposes of comparison. We found that students in both groups have conceptions of models that are basically consistent with a naive realist epistemology. Thus, they are more likely to think of models as physical copies of reality that embody different spatiotemporal perspectives than as constructed representations that may embody different theoretical perspectives. As student ideas become more sophisticated, however, they increasingly include the fact that models are designed for particular purposes, especially to help communication. All of our experts expressed ideas consistent with a constructivist framework, drawing a distinction between abstract and physical models and articulating ways that models are used for the construction and testing of ideas. Our findings suggest that students need more experience using models as intellectual tools, more experience with models that provide contrasting conceptual views of phenomena, and more discussions of the roles of models in the service of scientific

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280907

出版商:Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company    

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractA model called the Scientific Theory Profile was developed for use with preservice and inservice science teachers or with graduate students interested in the various ways scientific theories are perceived. Early indications—from a survey of institutions with science education programs and a survey of current science methods texts—are that too little emphasis is placed on what contemporary writings reveal about the nature and importance of scientific theories. This prompted the development of the Profile. The Profile consists of a grid, with the x‐axis representing methods for judging theories (rational vs. natural), and the y‐axis representing views on reigning scientific theories as being the Truth versus models of what works best (realism vs. anti‐realism). Three well‐known philosophers of science who were selected for detailed analysis and who form the “keystone” positions on the Profile are Thomas Kuhn, Carl Hempel, and Sir Karl Popper. The hypothesis was that an analysis of the writings of respected individuals in philosophy and history of science who have different perspectives on theories (as well as overarching areas of agreement) could be translated into relative coordinates on a graph; and that this visual model might be helpful to science teachers in developing a balanced philosophy of science and a deeper understanding of the power of reigning theories. Nine other contemporary philosophers, all influenced by the three originals, are included in brief analyses, with their positions on the grid being relative to the keystones. The Scientific Theory Profile then forms the basis for a course, now in the planning stages, in perspectives on the nature of science, primarily for science teachers, with some objectives and activ

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280908

出版商:Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company    

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractFrameworks that seek to understand how knowledge restructuring occurs and how to build a learning environment that facilitates this restructuring raise important philosophical, psychological and pedagogical questions and issues about how conceptual change occurs and what characteristics of knowledge growth ought to be a part of curricula and learning environments. Implicit in emphasizing thehowis a shift in science educations' perspective from one that embraces “scientists' ways of knowing” as the dominant objective towards one that favors “positioning the learner for the next step.” This change in perspective and approach represents a radical and complex departure from common practice. This article advances a piecemeal model of the character and mechanism of restructuring and then describes a model of educational practice designed to facilitate this form of restructuring. We argue that a piecemeal developmental perspective of conceptual change would offer quite different criteria for deciding what to teach and how to teach. The adoption of conceptual change teaching models implies teacher empowerment of a kind we have yet to fully understand. Empowering teachers with appropriate philosophical and psychological models for the selection and the sequencing of instructional tasks would aid in their describing and prescribing effective or meaningful learning strategies. Central to this educational model is a broadened and integrated view of assessment and instruction that we are calling aportfolio culture.The essential characteristic of this culture is that it creates opportunities for teachers and students to confront and develop their scientific understanding and to equip students with the tools necessary to take increased responsibility for their own restructuring, to assess for themselves what might be the nex

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280909

出版商:Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company    

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThis study investigates the hypothesis that when children are engaged in science experiments, the goal of which is to understand relations among causes and effects, they often use the engineering model of experimentation, characterized by the more familiar goal of manipulating variables to produce a desired outcome. Sixteen fifth‐ and sixth‐graders worked on two experimentation problems consistent with the engineering and science models, respectively. The context in which these problems were framed was also varied, to encourage adoption of either an engineering or science model. Over six 40‐min sessions, the group achieved significant increases in the percentages of inferences about variables that were both correct and valid. Improvement was greatest for those who began with the engineering problem and then went on to the science problem. The science model was associated with broader exploration, more selectiveness about evidence interpreted, and greater attention to establishing that some variables are not causal. The findings suggest that research on scientific inquiry processes should attend not only to the science content students are reasoning about, but also to their beliefs about the goals of in

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280910

出版商:Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company    

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280901

出版商:Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company    

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY