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Astronomy Education Review / Volume 11 / Issue 1 / RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS

2012, AER, 11 (1), 010102, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2009067

Improving Student Attitudes about Learning Science and Student Scientific Reasoning Skills

Published 24 January 2012

Douglas K. Duncan

University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309

Leilani Arthurs

University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309 and University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0340

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Student attitudes about learning science and student ideas about the nature of science were compared at the end of two astronomy courses taught in Fall 2007, a course with a traditional astronomy curriculum and a transformed course, whose traditional astronomy curriculum was supplemented by an embedded curriculum that explicitly addressed the nature of science and student metacognition (i.e., thinking about one’s own thinking.) The embedded curriculum in the transformed course gave students practice at evaluating examples of valid science and pseudoscience found on the internet; it also provided students opportunities to discuss what they think about learning science. Student attitudes and ideas were assessed using the epistemological beliefs assessment for physical science (EBAPS) survey, interviews, and written responses to an open-ended exam question. Our results indicate that the embedded curriculum led the majority of students in the transformed course to think that anyone can learn science, whereas a majority of students in the traditional course thought that only individuals with innate abilities can learn science and think scientifically. Students in the transformed course also reported much more confidence in their ability to evaluate the scientific validity of information found on the internet. Furthermore, students from the transformed course valued making sense of science more than students from the traditional course. The embedded curriculum could readily be used in any course for nonscience majors, not just introductory astronomy.

© 2012 The American Astronomical Society

KEYWORDS, PACS, and IPC

Keywords

astronomy, computer aided instruction, educational courses, inference mechanisms, Internet, physics education, College non-majors, research into teaching/learning,, course curriculum

PACS

International Patent Classification (IPC)

  • G06F15/18

    In which a programme is changed according to experience gained by the computer itself during a complete run; Learning machines

  • G06N5/00

    Computer systems utilizing knowledge based models

  • G09B5/00

    Electrically-operated educational appliances

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

1539-1515 (online)

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef The American Astronomical Society

ARTICLE DATA

History
Received 26 October 2009
Accepted 12 August 2011
Published online 24 January 2012
Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2009067

    References

  1. Abd-El-Khalick, F., Waters, M., and Le, A.-P. 2008, “Representations of Nature of Science in High School Chemistry Textbooks Over the Past Four Decades,” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 45(7), 835.
  2. Adams, W. K., Perkins, K. K., Podolefsky, N. S., Dubson, M., Finkelstein, N. D., and Wieman, C. E. 2006, “New Instrument for Measuring Student Beliefs About Physics and Learning Physics: The Colorado Learning Attitudes About Science Survey,” Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res., 2, 010101.
  3. Bao, L., Cai, T., Koenig, K., Fang, K., Han, J., Wang, J., Quing, L., Ding, L., Cui, L., Luo, Y., Wang, Y., Li, L., and Wu, N. 2009, “Learning and Scientific Reasoning,” Science, 323(5914), 586. [MEDLINE]
  4. Clough, M. P. 1997, “Strategies and Activities for Initiating and Maintaining Pressure on Students' Naïve Views Concerning the Nature of Science,” Interchange, 28(2–3), 191.
  5. Clough, M. P., and Olson, J. K. 2004, “The Nature of Science Always Part of the Science Story,” The Science Teacher, 71(9), 28.
  6. Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Physics Science (EBAPS) home page. http://www2.physics.umd.edu/~elby/EBAPS/home.htm, 09/27/2007.
  7. Elby, A., Frederiksen, J., Schwarz, C., and White, B. 2001, “The Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Physical Science,” www.flagguide.org.
  8. Lederman, N. G. 1992, “Students' and Teachers' Conceptions of the Nature of Science: A Review of the Research,” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 29(4), 331.
  9. Lederman, N. G., Abd-El-Khalick, F., Bell, R. L., and Schwartz, R. 2002. “Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire: Toward Valid and Meaningful Assessment of Learner's Conceptions of Nature of Science,” Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(6), 497.
  10. McComas, W. F. 2004, “Keys to Teaching the Nature of Science,” The Science Teacher, 71(9), 24.
  11. Michaels, E., and Bell, R. 2003, “The Nature of Science and Perceptual Frameworks,” The Science Teacher, 70(8), 36.
  12. Miller, J. D., 1989, “Scientific literacy,” in Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (San Francisco, California), 23 p.
  13. Miller, J. D. 1998, “The Measurement of Civic Scientific Literacy,” Public Understanding of Science, 7, 203.
  14. National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment, National Research Council, and Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education, 1996, National Science Education Standards, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
  15. Parker, L. C., Krockover, G. H., Lasher-Trap, S., and Eichinger, D. C. 2008, “Ideas About the Nature of Science Held by Undergraduate Atmospheric Science Students,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 89(11), 1681.
  16. Sandoval, W. A. 2003, “The Inquiry Paradox: Why Doing Science Doesn't Necessarily Change Ideas About Science,” in Proceedings of the Sixth International Computer-Based Learning in Science Conference, eds. C. P. Constantinou and Z. C. Zacharia, 825.
  17. Slater, T., Adams, J. P., Brissenden, G., and Duncan, D. K. 2001, The Physics Teacher, 31, 8.
  18. Stempien, J. 2007, private communication.

Figures (4) Tables (2)

Figures (click on thumbnails to view enlargements)

FIG.1
The first “science vs pseudoscience” assignment was given out in the first week of class.

FIG.1 Download High Resolution Image (.zip file) | Export Figure to PowerPoint

FIG.2
Six EBAPS questions solicited differences in student responses from the Control Class and the Test Class that were statistically significant. Test class: green circles; control class: red squares.

FIG.2 Download High Resolution Image (.zip file) | Export Figure to PowerPoint

FIG.3
(a) Test Class and (b) Control Class responses to the EBAPS question, “When it comes to science, students either learn quickly, or not at all.” On the x-axis, 2 represents “strongly disagree,” 1 represents “disagree,” 0 is neutral, −1 “agree,” and −2 “strongly agree.”

FIG.3 Download High Resolution Image (.zip file) | Export Figure to PowerPoint

FIG.4
Students in the first week of astronomy instruction (“No astronomy studied”) misunderstand the use of the word “theory” when speaking of scientific theories.

FIG.4 Download High Resolution Image (.zip file) | Export Figure to PowerPoint

Tables

Table I. Percentage responses of the actual data shown in Figure 3, along with expected values if both were drawn from the same population.

View Table
Table II. Number of students in the control and test classes associated with each type of response. The type of response represents a category of student responses, not the actual students’ wording. Table represents data derived from a subset of 116 students from both the Control and Test classes.

View Table


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