Running head: SCIENTIFIC THINKING

Scientific Thinking:

EDRS 810: Methods of Educational Research

Erin E. Peters

October 12, 2005

One of the most prominent reforms in science education in the past ten years is inquiry science (AAAS, 1993). Educators who teach inquiry science are striving to improve student understandings and explanations about the real world. In other words, inquiry science is the enactment of the nature of science. Too often, inquiry science is taught as either the scientific method or as “hands-on,” disconnected activities (Bybee, 2004). National documents such as the National Science Education Standards or The Benchmarks for Science Literacy, written for the audience of science teachers, tend to give ambiguous guidelines for teaching science inquiry. In the current environment of standards-based education, it is easy for science teachers to slip into the mode of disseminating information rather than teaching the ways of knowing that categorize the discipline of science (Duschl, 1990). McComas, Almazroa and Clough (1998) call for a more prominent role of the nature of science in curriculum to be explicitly taught for maximum effectiveness. Researchers have delved into how teachers perceive the nature of science and the implications this has on instruction.

Defining the Nature of Science

In the past, there was not a consensus on what elements of the nature of science were important to teach, but in the past ten years researchers have converged on aspects of the nature of science, and more recently there has been an agreement on the elements of the nature of science (McComas, Almazroa & Clough, 1998). The literature converges on seven aspects of the nature of science that defines science as a discipline: 1) scientific knowledge is durable, yet tentative, 2) empirical evidence is used to support ideas in science, 3) social and historical factors play a role in the construction of scientific knowledge, 4) laws and theories play a central role in developing scientific knowledge, yet they have different functions, 5) accurate record keeping, peer review and replication of experiments help to validate scientific ideas, 6) science is a creative endeavor, and 7) science and technology are not the same, but they impact each other (McComas, 2004; Lederman, 2004). Evidence of these principles as the foundation for how science operates as a discipline can be found in science education research journals, books about the philosophy and epistemology of science, and practitioner handbooks.

Translating Knowledge of the Nature of Science into Classroom Practice

Even with modest gains in understanding of the nature of science, teachers still fail in translating this knowledge into classroom practice. A study of a group of preservice teachers with adequate knowledge of the nature of science showed that there was not much instruction involving the nature of science due to a preoccupation with classroom management and the mandated curriculum (Abd-El-Khalick, Bell & Lederman, 1998). In a study involving preservice teachers in Spain, researchers found that there was no correspondence between teacher conceptions of the nature of science and classroom practice (Mellado, 1997). In Australia, a study showed that even when both teachers and students believed science to be an evolving discipline, the status quo in the classroom was in direct contrast to this belief (Tobin & McRobbie, 1997). The class was taught with a traditional lecture format, and teachers and students alike were comfortable with the format although it was opposed to their belief about how science is done. Even college science faculty members who had very sophisticated understandings of the nature of science, when collaborating on the development and implementation of a integrative non-major science course, did not offer any explicit instruction in the nature of science during the course (Southerland, Gess-Newson & Johnston, 2003). In a case study of an experienced teacher who sought help from researchers in how to apply her sophisticated understanding of the nature of science to her fourth grade classroom had difficulty explicitly teaching any elements of the nature of science (Akerson & Abd-El-Khalick, 2003). Apparently, the mechanisms that help operationalize the understanding of the nature of science into classroom instruction are poorly understood.

Explicit Instruction of the Nature of Science

Many of the studies regarding the nature of science reported gains in teacher understanding through interventions involving explicit instruction. In an action research study, an experienced teacher worked with an experienced researcher to identify aspects of the nature of science taught in an inquiry activity. The study found that it was difficult to present cogent and coherent instruction on the nature of science through inquiry and illustrated the teacher’s pivotal role in designing class discussions in what science is and how scientists work (Bianchini & Colburn, 2000). Some success in teaching preservice elementary teachers was found in an intervention that involved explicit instruction in the nature of science. Participants of the study views changed from science as primarily a body of knowledge to a more appropriate blended view of science as a body of knowledge generated through active application of science inquiry (Gess-Newsome, 2002). In a comparative study, researchers taught the same science content to two groups of inservice teachers. The control group received only implicit instruction of the nature of science via the content, and the experimental group received explicit instruction of the nature of science. The control group showed no gains in knowledge of the nature of science, but the experimental group showed significant gains (Khishfe & Abd-El-Khalick, 2002). Although it is intuitive to think that just by conducting inquiry that students will understand how scientists operate, there is a body of research that demonstrates explicit instruction in the nature of science has been found to be more effective.

Student Understanding of the Nature of Science

Investigations into student understanding of the nature of science originate in different realms, but tend to converge on the same finding, that students need to experience cognitive dissonance in order to eliminate archaic conceptions of the nature of science. When students were presented with discrepant events in a long-term setting, their notions of the nature of science began to conform to professional scientists’ understanding of the nature of science (Clough, 1997). Students in another classroom instructed in canonical understanding of science did not show maturity in their understanding of the nature of science, but after incorporating student ideas, including exploration of misconceptions, into instruction the students showed gains in their understanding of the nature of science (Akerson, Flick & Lederman, 2000). Hogan (2000) suggests that science education researchers can gain a better understanding of how students operationalize the nature of science by dividing up their knowledge into two categories: distal knowledge, how students understand formal scientific knowledge, and proximal knowledge, how students understand their own personal beliefs and commitments in terms of science. Hogan believes that by seeing how the two categories of knowledge intersect, researchers can gain access into how to better develop student understanding of the nature of science. In another study of student understanding of the nature of science, it was found that students views depended greatly on moral and ethical issues, rather than in newly presented material (Zeidler, Walker, Ackett & Simmons, 2002). Instead of changing their archaic notions of the nature of science, students tended to hang on to their prior understandings even when presented with conflicting information. Undergraduate science majors were found to change their conceptions of the nature of science during a long-term project that offered many opportunities to discover conflicting information (Ryer, Leach & Driver, 1999). It appears from the research that students will change their conceptions of the nature of science to more sophisticated through long-term exposure to discrepant information, but more information about student processes in learning the nature of science is needed.

Instruments Used to Measure Understanding of the Nature of Science

Many of the instruments used in the studies regarding the nature of science tend to be objective, pencil and paper assessments which subsequently changed into more descriptive instruments. Toward the end of the 1990’s several researchers make arguments that traditional paper and pencil assessments would not be adequate in fully explaining what needs to be known about teacher and student conceptions of the nature of science (Lederman, Wade & Bell, 1998). Researchers responded to this argument by conducting interviews along with surveys or by including several open-ended questions on surveys in order to get more descriptive data. Several versions of an instrument originally developed by Lederman, the Views of Nature of Science (VNOS), have been used mostly by the researchers who focus on preservice teachers. Other instruments have been developed to be more descriptive in explaining student achievement in the nature of science such as Scientific Inquiry Capabilities and Scientific Discovery (Zachos, Hick, Doane & Sargent, 2000). Although the objective, pencil and paper assessments have been altered to include more description of mechanisms, there is still a need for improved assessments regarding the nature of science.

Using the Nature of Science in Metacognition

The aspects of the nature of science can be useful in helping students to think about their epistemology. Examining the nature of science can supply characteristics that distinguish science from other ways of knowing and explicitly help students scrutinize their rationale in forming ideas. Teachers can utilize these characteristics in their lessons to help students to examine the information they know and think about how student knowledge is scientific. Educational researchers studying metacognition are in agreement that traditional methods of teaching do not allow students to demonstrate all of their knowledge about science.

Socially Constructed Knowledge

Methods of teaching that allow students to construct knowledge socially are helpful in developing deeper meaning because thought processes of students are exposed and are easier to understand (Gijlers & de Jong, 2005; Hogan 1999). Social construction of knowledge also aids students in recognizing the processes involved in developing scientific arguments such as cultural experience in scientific communities (Hogan, & Maglienti, 2001). Several studies revolve around an exemplary teacher who uses status words to help students evaluate the scientific merit of their knowledge (Beeth, 1998; Beeth & Hewson, 1999). Some of the techniques of the exemplary teacher are not transferable, but the method she uses to develop student ideas with status words is transferable to other teachers. Intelligibility is the primary criteria students use to determine if an idea makes sense to them. If students find the idea to be intelligible, then they are asked to see if the idea is plausible. To be plausible means that the idea correlates to students’ own experiences or experiences they have heard about. The last criteria, the most difficult to determine, is fruitfulness. If the idea can be transferred to different applications, then the idea is fruitful. Some of the research suggests that these strategies are useful for elementary students, but attempts to use them with middle school students were not as successful. More sophisticated structures may be needed to elicit social construction of knowledge for middle school students.

Argumentation in the Construction of Scientific Understanding

Another camp of researchers sees the chief metacognitive tool as argumentation, as it is central to the presentation of scientific information. Research from this area has shown that written reports of scientific knowledge do not necessarily indicate the totality of student knowledge (Chin, 2000). Students who use written, visual and oral presentations of information are the methods that are most successful in showing the depth of student knowledge, but teachers do not have the pedagogical knowledge to conduct whole class evaluation of arguments that allow students to have a voice in the class (Driver, Newton, & Osborne, 2000), so professional development is necessary for progress in this area. When students are allowed to experience the process of developing and defending arguments, students are better equipped to understanding science as a process of generating knowledge rather than a body of factual information in its final form.

Feedback Loops in Construction of Scientific Knowledge

Teachers who are asked to develop authentic science activities for students often interpret science instruction as a series of often disconnected hands-on lesson which in and of themselves do not guarantee student understanding. Using a process called Metacognitive Learning Cycle emphasizes formal opportunities for teachers and students to talk about their science ideas, forming a feedback loop that informs the development of scientific ideas. One study tested the effectiveness of the Metacognitive Learning Cycle by setting up a control group and an experimental group. There was no significance difference in ecological understanding across two treatment groups, but delayed post test mean scores were higher with Metacognitive Learning Cycle group than with control group (Blank, 2000).

Self-regulation, another form of a feedback loop, can help students monitor their learning progress accurately. Self-regulated learners adopt learning orientation, whereas naïve learners adopt performance orientation (Zimmerman, 1998). By giving students metacognitive tools to check if they are thinking like scientists in an inquiry activity, students may be able to progress from performance orientation to learning orientation. Naïve self-regulators seldom verbalize and are unaware of imagery as a guide and tend to rely on the results from trial-and-error experiences to implement new methods of learning (Costa, Calderia, Gallastegui & Otero, 2000). Skillful self-regulators attribute negatively evaluated outcomes mainly to strategy use, learning method, or insufficient practice, where naïve learners tend to attribute them to ability limitations. Students can be taught positive self-regulations feedback loops by teachers who have access to metacognitive prompts that promote the nature of science

Relevance of the Nature of Science as Metacognition to Scientific Education

The field of the nature of science still requires a great deal of exploration. In order to fully understand how people learn such as esoteric subject as the nature of science there needs to be more dialogue between the scientific community and science teachers (Glason & Bentley, 2000), more understanding of student views of the nature of science (Zeidler, Walker, Ackett & Simmons, 2002), and more understanding of how teachers who have a sophisticated view of the nature of science can incorporate these ideas into classroom practice. Several researchers have begun to take a non-traditional view of the nature of science in order to expose some of the mechanisms to understanding. Wong (2002) suggests that science educators and science education researchers abandon the search for commonalities in the nature of science and begin to embrace the diversity of the nature of science in order to translate ideas to the classroom. Bell and Lederman (2000) looked at scientists who had sophisticated but different views on the nature of science to see how they made decisions based on their views. Their research showed no differences in decision making because the scientists made their professional decisions based on personal values, morals/ethics and social concerns. Bybee (2004), a researcher who has been involved in policy for decades, notices an overemphasis in teaching strategies regarding the nature of science and an under emphasis on contemporary learning theory. The field of the nature of science has been successful in defining operational elements of the nature of science and now it is time for the field to progress into cognitive science domains.

Literature in metacognition emphasizes the lack of consensus on how epistemological factors influence student learning. More research in developing a thinking strategy or ethic to evaluate the scientific merit of information can change how students develop their scientific way of knowing. Many instructors attempt to teach scientific thinking veiled as the scientific method, which is limiting the way students construct epistemologies regarding the nature of science. A large quantity of research cited earlier illustrates student and teacher tendency to cling to prior ideas regardless of contradiction by new data. Cognitive change can be invoked through deep processes such as metacognition. More research in this field will help to produce more fully informed ideas on how epistemological factors influence student learning.

Research Questions

There is a gap in research where the fields of the nature of science and metacognition intersect. The research that has been done in the field of the nature of science attempts to take new teachers and explicitly teach them elements of the nature of science. There is very little success using different variations of this method. There is less success in getting teachers to translate this knowledge into classroom practice. Perhaps it is because teachers need to evaluate their own learning in order to facilitate student learning in such an esoteric concept as the nature of science. Dawson (2000) claims that in the classroom there is usually not enough repetition for metacognitive awareness and student competence level is not usually taken into consideration. Allowing prior research to inform my own research, I would like to construct a baseline of student attitudes regarding metacognition in science. This investigation attempts to examine the question, “Is there a correlation between positive student attitudes in science and perceived metacognitive ability?” The investigation also proposes to find any interrelationship among student perceptions of five aspects of the nature of science in metacognition: 1) observation, 2) data collection, 3) measurement, 4) classification and 5) generalization. Prior research has helped to define the nature of science, to illuminate difficulties in teacher and student understanding of the nature of science, and to show supportive metacognitive processes that can be used as a basis for the construction of new metacognitive tools that will help to scaffold teachers’ and students’ understanding of the nature of science to more meaningful comprehension. The purpose of this investigation is to measure student attitudes toward science and metacognition. Since little is known about the relationships among the seven variables, the study is intended to develop a baseline of perceptions. Once the relationships among the variables are better understood, further studies can look at gender effects, grade level differences and other stratifications. The results of this study may help to inform future investigations into mechanisms that operationalize the concepts of the nature of science through metacognitive prompts.

Method

Sample

Three hundred and eight eighth grade science students from a middle school in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States will participate in the study. The middle school serves 928 students, grades six through eight. Seventeen percent of students from this school receive free or reduced price for lunches. The demographics of the school population are as follows: 7.9% Black, 10.7% Hispanic, 69.2% White, and 11.6% Asian. One group of eighth grade students will not be included because of the conflict in the researcher also being their science teacher.

Students were not explicitly instructed in the aspects detailed on the survey, although an objective requiring instruction in the nature of science has been part of the curriculum since 2003. The students will complete 16 questions on a Likert-scale survey as an extension of their science class. Students will be asked to think about all of their experiences in all science classes, not just their current science class, when filling out the survey. Three science teachers will be administering the survey to all of their students, approximately 100 students per teacher.

Materials

The 16-item survey was designed to test seven different student perceptions: 1) attitude about the subject of science, 2) general use of metacognition, 3) use of metacognition in observation, 4) use of metacognition in data collection, 5) use of metacognition in measurement, 6) use of metacognition in classification and 7) use of metacognition in generalization. Each of the topics was chosen because they exemplify skills that are valuable in teaching science as a way of knowing. Table 1 shows how the topics chosen for the survey relate to science classroom teaching. Students were asked to choose a number between 1 and 5 to show whether they agreed with the statement (5) or disagreed with the statement (1). Questions were designed to test the same variable so that instrument reliability could be verified. Questions 1, 3 and 8 tested student attitudes toward science. Questions 2 and 5 tested student perceptions of general metacognitive ability. Questions 4 and 11 tested student perception of ability to have metacognition about observations. Questions 6 and 15 tested student perception of ability to have metacognition about classification. Questions 7 and 16 tested student perception of metacognitive ability in measurement. Questions 9 and 10 measured student perception of metacognitive ability in data collection. Questions 12, 13 and 14 measured student perception of metacognitive ability in generalizing. A copy of the survey is attached.

Field tests of the survey were conducted with three high achieving, average achieving and low achieving readers from the eighth grade, and consisted of reviewing a draft of the survey for readability and comprehension. Changes in the statements were made based on the interviews of the students after the draft survey was administered. The students involved in the field test will not be taking the survey in the investigation, since they have prior knowledge of the intention of the survey.

Procedure

Approval for this study was obtained from the Human Subjects Review Board at the sponsoring university and from the Research and Evaluation office at the participating school district. Students read and responded to the survey independently. They were given a reasonable amount of time to rate their perceptions on the survey. Students were instructed to act on their first instinct and to rate their perception from the first or second reading of the statement. Students were also asked to write an “M” in the top right hand corner of the survey paper if they were male, and to write an “F” if they were female. The physical materials required were a writing instrument and the survey.

Scoring Procedures and Reliability of Scoring

The data from the surveys will be complied in SPSS software. Each question from the survey will be input as a separate variable along with the nominal input of gender. Internal consistency reliability for each of the following topics will be determined reviewing the coefficient alpha: 1) attitude about the subject of science, 2) general use of metacognition, 3) use of metacognition in observation, 4) use of metacognition in data collection, 5) use of metacognition in measurement, 6) use of metacognition in classification and 7) use of metacognition in generalization.

Proposed Data Analyses Section

Since all data is categorical, Chi-Square analysis and Phi Coefficient analysis will be performed on all permutations of pairs of data sets to determine the relationship between pairs of variables. For example, attitude about the subject of science and general use of metacognition will be analyzed for any correlation, as well as attitude about the subject of science and use of metacognition in observation. Table 2 shows all of the possible permutations that will be analyzed. A non-normal distribution is assumed due to two factors, the instrument is new and the sample is relatively small. Gender effects will be examined if any correlations are determined among the pairs.

The null hypothesis will predict no differences between the pairs of variables and the alternative hypothesis will predict there will be a difference between the pairs of variables. The confidence interval will be set at 95% and the effect size will be determined.

Table 1

Connections between the Nature of Science and Science Process Skills

Inquiry Activities	Using senses to identify phenomena	Organizing information so that it is accessible	Using tools to quantify phenomena	Creating data tables	Connecting ideas to other activities
Process Skills	Observation	Classification	Measurement	Organization of data	Generalizing
Nature of Science Concepts	Empirical evidence is used to support ideas	Knowledge production in science shares common factors	Science and technology impact each other but are not the same	Careful data recording is a habit of mind of scientists	Theories help to connect and explain scientific facts
Nature of Science Concepts that are not addressed in process skills common in classrooms Scientific knowledge is tentative but durable Science has a creative and a subjective component Historical, social and cultural factors influence science Science and its methods cannot answer all questions

Table 2

Pairings for Correlation Analyses

Data Set	Variable 1	Variable 2
1	Attitude about science	General metacognition
2	Attitude about science	Metacognition in observation
3	Attitude about science	Metacognition in classification
4	Attitude about science	Metacognition in measurement
5	Attitude about science	Metacognition in data collection
6	Attitude about science	Metacognition in generalization
7	General metacognition	Metacognition in observation
8	General metacognition	Metacognition in classification
9	General metacognition	Metacognition in measurement
10	General metacognition	Metacognition in data collection
11	General metacognition	Metacognition in generalization
12	Metacognition in observation	Metacognition in classification
13	Metacognition in observation	Metacognition in measurement
14	Metacognition in observation	Metacognition in data collection
15	Metacognition in observation	Metacognition in generalization
16	Metacognition in classification	Metacognition in measurement
17	Metacognition in classification	Metacognition in data collection
18	Metacognition in classification	Metacognition in generalization
19	Metacognition in measurement	Metacognition in data collection
20	Metacognition in measurement	Metacognition in generalization
21	Metacognition in data collection	Metacognition in generalization

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