Developing Scientific Reasoning: Targeted Physics Instruction for STEM Majors

发展科学推理能力是当代教育的一个主要目标。全球知识经济的工作性质要求教育目标从内容训练转向培养推理、创造力和开放性问题解决等高端技能。不幸的是，典型的科学入门课程在这些领域对学生没有显著的影响。尽管科学推理已经成为STEM学习中高端技能的广泛目标领域，但关于以科学推理为目标的课程影响的知识库仍然不是很深入。该项目将通过制作专门设计用于培养科学推理技能的研究型课程来解决这一差距，并提供关于课程活动及其具体策略如何影响大学生科学推理技能发展的确凿证据。该项目的成果将包括：(1)第一学期（入门）物理的完整实验课程，其实验模块的设计使其可以灵活地用于各机构的实验环境；(2)一个知识库，其中包括课程中不同元素在帮助学生培养科学推理技能方面的有效性评估结果，以及在不同环境中实施课程以优化学习的最佳实践。由于科学推理模块将被设计成很容易适应现有的实验课程，这项工作有可能影响数千名STEM专业的学生（仅辛辛那提大学每年就有1600名学生）。由于科学推理技能跨越STEM的所有领域，该项目的研究成果将适用于STEM学科的许多课程。这个项目将开发有前途的课程与严格的评估研究结合起来。强有力的评估计划将在六个预先选定的测试地点进行。一个有效的评估工具将被用来衡量学生的科学推理。研究设计涉及对学生群体随机分组的多次重复测量，将产生数据，允许识别随时间推移的班级平均科学推理技能表现模式，以及理解科学推理表现的变化如何与特定教学事件相关联。采用多重t检验的统计分析，通过比较相关教学前后学生的表现，来确定学生的进化模式和状态是否在统计上显著并与教学事件一致。从测试地点的教师那里收集的调查数据将提供成功实施策略的证据，以及挑战，这样课程和相关产品（即教师指南）可以设计为优化学习和促进最终产品的广泛使用。

Developing scientific reasoning skills is a major goal of contemporary education. The nature of jobs in the global, knowledge-based economy calls for a shift of educational goals from content drilling toward fostering higher-end skills in reasoning, creativity, and open problem solving. Unfortunately, the typical introductory science course does not significantly impact students in these areas. Although scientific reasoning has become a widely targeted domain for high-end skills in STEM learning, the knowledge base about the impact of curricula targeting scientific reasoning is still not very deep. This project will address the gap by producing a research-based curriculum specifically designed to develop scientific reasoning skills, as well as solid evidence about how the course activities and their specific strategies affect college students' development of scientific reasoning skills. Outcomes of the project will include (1) a complete lab curriculum for first-semester (introductory) physics, with lab modules designed such that they can be flexibly used in lab settings across institutions, and (2) a knowledge base with assessment outcomes on the effectiveness of different elements of the curriculum in helping students develop scientific reasoning skills, as well as best practices for implementing the curriculum in different settings to optimize learning. Because the scientific reasoning modules will be designed to readily fit into existing lab courses, this work has the potential to impact thousands of STEM majors (1,600 per year at the University of Cincinnati alone). Because scientific reasoning skills cross all areas of STEM, the project's research outcomes will be adaptable across many courses in the STEM disciplines.This project combines the development of promising curricula with a rigorous assessment/evaluation study. The robust assessment plan will be conducted across six pre-selected test sites. A validated assessment tool will be used to measure students' scientific reasoning. The research design, which involves multiple repeated measures with random subgroups of a student population, will produce data that allows for the identification of patterns of class mean performance on scientific reasoning skills over time, as well as an understanding of how changes in scientific reasoning performance are connected with specific instructional events. Statistical analyses involving multiple t-tests will determine whether the evolution patterns and states are statistically significant and consistent with instructional events by comparing performance before and after relevant instruction. Survey data collected from instructors at test sites will provide evidence of successful implementation strategies, as well as challenges, such that the curriculum and related products (i.e., instructor guides) can be designed to optimize learning and promote widespread use of the end products.