ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280602

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

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to explore middle school students' perceptions of what factors facilitated their learning of science. Florida's Educational Reform Act of 1983 funded programs providing the state's precollege students with summer learning opportunities in science. mathematics, and computers. The programs were intended to encourage the development of creative approaches to the teaching of these disciplines. Under this program, between 50 and 60 high‐achieving middle school students were in residence on the University of South Florida campus for 12 consecutive days of study in the World of Water (WOW) program. There were two sessions per summer involving a total of 572 participants. Eighi specially trained teachers were in residence with the students. Between 50 and 70 experts from the university, government. business, and industry interacted with the students each year in an innovative science/technology/society (STS) program. An assignment toward the close of the program asked students to reflect on their experiences in residence at the university and write an essay comparing learning in the WOW program to learning in their schools. Those essays were the base for this study. This was a qualitative study using a discursive approach to emergent design to generate grounded theory. Document review, participant observation, and open‐ended interviews were used to gather and triangulate data in five phases. Some of the factors that middle school students perceived as helpful to learning science were (a) experiencing the situations about which they were learning; (b) having live presentations by professional experts; (c) doing hands‐on activities: (d) being active learners; (e) using inductive reasoning to generate new knowledge; (f) exploring transdisciplinary approaches to problem solving; (g) having adult mentors; (h) interacting with peers and adults; (i) establishing networks; (j) having close personal friends who shared their interest in learning; (k) trusting the individuals in their learning environment, including adults and students; and (1) experiencing a sense of self‐reliance. The preceding information was used to generate a series of hypotheses which were woven into a theoretical model. This model suggests that middle school science teacher education would be enhanced by helping prospective and in‐service teachers develop and implement strategies that build trust, provide immersion in learning, and use inductive reasoning. This model is currently being used as the theoretical base to convert a traditional junior high school in the South to a midd

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280603

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

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThis study compared the achievement of high‐ and low‐reading‐ability students in two classes of a one‐semester introductory college biology course after they either received and used teacher‐provided questions posed at various taxonomic levels on textual reading assigned over a five‐week period (Group 1) or learned via training to generate and use their own questions at the identical taxonomic levels based on the same text over the same period of time (Group 2). Independent variables included (a) form of questioning (teacher provided and self‐generated), (b) reading ability (low and high), and (c) question type (referent, literal, interpretive, inferential, and self‐critical). Dependent variables included scores from weekly quizzes and from a summative examination. Results indicated that (a) training students to generate and answer their own questions based on text reading had a favorable effect on their midrange (weekly quiz) performance; (b) relative to long‐range (summative exam) performance, training students to generate and answer their own questions based on study reading was no more efficacious than providing students with questions based on the same text; and (c) teacher‐provided questions at the literal level facilitated the acquisition of intended and incidental discrimination material better than teacher‐provided questions at any

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280604

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

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThe enhancement of chemistry students' skill in problem solving through problem categorization is the focus of this study. Twenty‐four students in a freshman chemistry course for health professionals are taught how to solve problems using the explicit method of problem solving (EMPS) (Bunce&Heikkinen, 1986). The EMPS is an organized approach to problem analysis which includes encoding the information given in a problem (Given, Asked For), relating this to what is already in long‐term memory (Recall), and planning a solution (Overall Plan) before a mathematical solution is attempted. In addition to the EMPS training, treatment students receive three 40‐minute sessions following achievement tests in which they are taught how to categorize problems. Control students use this time to review the EMPS solutions of test questions. Although problem categorization is involved in one section of the EMPS (Recall), treatment students who received specific training in problem categorization demonstrate significantly higher achievement on combination problems (those problems requiring the use of more than one chemical topic for their solution) at (p= 0.01) than their counterparts. Significantly higher achievement for treatment students is also measured on an unannounced test (p= 0.02). Analysis of interview transcripts of both treatment and control students illustrates a “Rolodex approach” to problem solving employed by all students in this study. The Rolodex approach involves organizing equations used to solve problems on mental index cards and flipping through them, matching units given when a new problem is to be solved. A second phenomenon observed during student interviews is the absence of a link in the conceptual understanding of the chemical concepts involved in a problem and the problem‐solving skills employed to correctly solve problems. This study shows that explicit training in categorization skills and the EMPS can lead to higher achievement in complex problem‐solving situations (combination problems and unannounced test). However, such achievement may be limited by the lack of linkages between students' conceptual understanding and improved problem

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280605

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

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThis study supported two hypotheses. First, adjunct questions interacted with a science chart so powerfully that content established as difficult to learn in the pilot and in this study's control groups became easier to learn when charted. Second, students familiar with the chart test before instruction (test exposure) were better prepared to take this test after instruction. This adjunct‐question study examined the generalizability of selective‐attention and academic‐studying hypotheses to a modified science chart medium. About 300 high school students were randomly assigned to four conditions each including a vitamin chart (chart only, test exposure, importance of questions emphasized to students by teachers, and combinational conditions—test exposure and question importance) across 16 biology classrooms. Then these same students were again randomly assigned within each classroom to a control and to four question treatments no questions, questions focusing on easy‐to‐learn charted content, questions focusing on difficult‐to‐learn charted content, and a combinat

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280606

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

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThe use of STS vignettes with class discussions is a popular way for science teachers to integrate STS in science courses. Two studies were conducted to test the effects of infusing short STS vignettes with periodic class discussions into the genetics unit of high school biology, on students' awareness of current STS issues, the importance students assign to current STS issues, and their achievement in the genetics unit. The nonequivalent control‐group quasiexperimental design was employed in each study, with the frequency with which the vignettes and discussions were used during a six‐week period differing across them. In neither study were the control groups exposed to the STS vignettes and discussions. The data did not allow the three null hypotheses to be rejected in either experiment. Recommendations are made on the use of STS vignettes by science teachers, and for further resea

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280607

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

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

AbstractThis study was designed as a test for two neo‐Piagetian theories. More specifically, this research examined the relationships between the development of proportional reasoning strategies and three cognitive variables from Pascual‐Leone's and Case's neo‐Piagetian theories. A priori hypotheses linked the number of problems students worked until they induced a proportional reasoning strategy to the variables of M‐space, degree of field dependence, and short‐term storage space. The subjects consisted of students enrolled in Physical Science I, a science course for nonscience majors at the University of Southern Mississippi. Of the 34 subjects in the study, 23 were classified as concrete operational on the basis of eight ratio tasks. Problems corresponding to five developmental levels of proportional reasoning (according to Piagetian and neo‐Piagetian theory), were presented by a microcomputer to the 23 subjects who had been classified as concrete operational. After a maximum of 6 hours of treatment, 17 of the 23 subjects had induced ratio schemata at the upper formal level (IIIB), while the remaining subjects used lower formal level (IIIA) schemata. The data analyses showed that neither M‐space and degree of field‐dependence, either alone or in combination, nor short‐term storage predicted the number of problems students need to do until they induce an appropriate problem‐solving strategy. However, there were significant differences in the short‐term storage space of those subjects who mastered ratio problems at the highest level and those who did not. Also, the subjects' degree of field‐dependence was not a predictor of either the ability to transfer problem‐solving strategies to a new setting or the reuse of inappropriate strategies. The results of this study also suggest that short‐term storage space is a variable with high correlations to a number of aspects of learning such as transfer and choice

ISSN:0022-4308    

DOI:10.1002/tea.3660280608

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.3660280601

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

年代:1991

数据来源: WILEY