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

本研究报告由三大部分组成。第一部分包括研究的理论框架和总体规划。第二部分介绍了前人关于科学教育中思维技能和其他相关因素测量工具发展的研究。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、情感特征和体验的横断面评估。尽管这四个国家的学生有着完全不同的文化和环境条件，但他们的思维能力发展却有一个共同的规律。此外，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密切相关。在一些元素…上使用了类似的工具和程序在第二项研究中，日本的学童人数更多。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，发现了相似的共同模式。因此，不同国家和年级的学生在认知技能的发展上表现出共性，这些认知技能与他们的情感特征和经验显著相关。第三项调查表明，以实验室为中心的探究式教学在培养学生的过程技能、实验室技能和理解科学知识方面比传统的以教科书为中心的方法更好。此外，使用传统的以教科书为中心的方法对学生的认知技能没有显著影响。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，该课程的一些内容与学生的认知水平不匹配。有些题目被安排在学生在认知上没有准备好接触的年级水平，因此他们在测试中得分较低。在这方面，科学课程需要重新评估。本报告中提出的基线数据可供教育工作者用来改善教与学过程的质量以及科学课程的开发。较少

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