A Study of Cognitive Skills and Other Related Factors in Science Education.

本研究报告由三个主要部分组成。第一部分包括理论框架和研究总体方案。第二部分包括以往有关科学教育中思维能力和其他相关因素的测量工具发展的研究。第三部分是对四次调查的数据分析和讨论。第一项调查是对日本、韩国、美国和菲律宾的中学生（7-9年级）的认知技能、情感特征和经历进行横断面评估。尽管这四个国家的学生有着完全不同的文化和环境条件，但他们的思维技能发展有一个共同的模式。此外，他们的推理和处理能力与他们的经历和情感特征有很大的关系。在第二项研究中，更多的日本学生使用了类似的仪器和程序。当他们的结果与第一项研究中的中学生的结果进行比较时，发现了类似的共同模式。因此，无论学生属于哪个国家或年级，他们在认知技能的发展中都表现出共性，而这些相同的认知技能与他们的情感特征和经历有着显著的关系。第三项调查表明，在培养学生的过程技能、实验技能和理解科学知识方面，以实验室为中心的探究方法比传统的以教科书为中心的方法相对更好。此外，使用传统的以教科书为中心的教学方法对学生的认知技能没有显著的影响。在第四项研究中，使用成就测验对日本科学课程内容的适当性进行了评估。结果表明，部分课程内容与学生的认知水平不匹配。有些题目被安排在学生认知能力不强的年级，因此他们在测试中得了低分。在这方面，科学课程需要重新评估。那些不适当的题目需要调到较低或较高的等级。教育工作者可以利用本报告中提出的基线数据来提高教学过程的质量以及科学课程的发展。少

This research report consists of three major parts. The first part includes the theoretical framework and the total plan of the research. The second part includes the previous researches related to the development of instruments that measure thinking skills and other related factors in science education. The third part deals with data analyses and discussions of the four investigations.The first investigation was a cross-sectional assessment of the cognitive skills, affective char-acteristics, and experiences of secondary students (grades 7-9) in Japan, Republic of Korea, United States, and the Philippines. Although the students in these four countries have entirely different cultures and environmental conditions, a common pattern in the development of their thinking skills hed been observed. Also, their reasoning and process skills had been found to be significantly re-lated to their experiences and affective characteristics.Similar instruments and procedures were used on some element … More ary pupils in Japan in the second study. When their results were compared with those of the secondary students in the first study, similar common pattern had been observed. Hence, whatever country or grade level students belong to, they exhibit commonalities in the development of their cognitive skills, and that these same cogni-tive skills are significantly related to their affective characteristics and experiences.The third investigation had shown that the laboratory-centered inquiry approach was a relatively better method than the traditional textbook-centered approach in developing students' process skills, laboratory skills, and understanding scientific knowledge. In addition, no significant effect had been observed on the students' cognitive skills with the use of the traditional textbook-centered approach.In the fourth study, an assessment was done using the achievement test on the appropriateness of the content of the science curriculum in Japan. The results had shown that some contents of the curriculum do not match with the cognitive levels of the students. Some topics had been placed in a grade level where the pupils were not cognitively ready to encounter, hence their low marks in the test. In this regard, the science curriculum needs to be reevaluated. Those topics that had been inappropriately placed need to be transferred to either lower or higher grade level.The baseline data that were presented in this report could be used by educators to improve the quality of the teaching-learning processes as well as the development of the science curriculum. Less