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。第一部分包括研究的理论框架和总体规划。第二部分介绍了科学教育中测量思维技能和其他相关因素的工具开发的相关研究。第三部分是对四个调查的数据分析和讨论，第一个调查是对日本、韩国、美国和菲律宾的中学生（7-9年级）的认知技能、情感特征和经验的横截面评估。虽然这四个国家的学生有着完全不同的文化和环境条件，但他们的思维能力的发展有一个共同的模式。同时，他们的推理和处理技能也被发现与他们的经验和情感特征有着显著的关系，在某些元素上使用了类似的工具和程序 关于我们 在第二项研究中，日本的小学生。当他们的结果与第一次研究的中学生的结果比较时，观察到类似的共同模式。因此，不同国家、不同年级的学生在认知技能的发展上具有一定的共性，并且这些认知技能与他们的情感特征和情感体验有着显著的相关性。第三次调查结果表明，以实验室为中心的探究教学法在发展学生的过程技能、实验技能、理解科学知识。此外，传统的以教科书为中心的教学方法对学生的认知能力没有显著影响。第四项研究使用成就测验对日本的理科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相匹配。有些题目被放在一个年级，学生们在认知上还没有准备好遇到，因此他们在测试中得分很低。在这方面，科学课程需要重新评估。那些位置不当的主题需要转移到较低或较高的年级，本报告中提出的基线数据可供教育工作者使用，以提高教学过程的质量以及科学课程的开发。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