Promoting Conceptual Change in Reasoning

这个项目的总体目标是促进在学习生命科学的中学生中促进科学推理领域的理论和实践。尽管这样的策略在人们的职业、公民和个人生活中很重要，但成年人和青少年在评估和解释研究证据方面通常很差。该项目有三个子目标。第一个子目标是理论上的：提高我们对学生如何学习科学推理的理解。第二个目标是教学：研究如何教授人们评估和解释科学研究所需的策略。第三个分目标是方法论：开发使微基因技术适应课堂环境的技术，包括细粒度的定量和定性分析。这两项拟议的研究将在新泽西州的不同中学进行。研究一将是一项专家-新手研究，调查学生默会推理图式的性质，以及学生的图式在概念上与专家的不同之处。这项研究将有助于理解学习推理图式所涉及的各种概念变化。研究2将是一项微遗传学研究，在4到5个月的时间里跟踪6个班级的学生，因为他们从结合推理研讨会的教学中学习。在中学生前期工作的基础上，该项目将以研究生研究研讨会为蓝本开发研讨会。研究研讨会将通过将各种证据评估活动整合到中学生命科学课程中来实施，包括戏剧性研究情景、动手探究、基于PDA的模拟、对研究的媒体报道的讨论以及多项研究评估。研究2的总体目标是(A)追踪学生辩论和推理的变化模式，以及(B)了解导致这些变化的教学事件。

The general goal of this project is to advance theory and practice in the area of promoting scientific reasoning among middle-school students studying the life sciences. Despite the importance of such strategies in people's professional, civic, and personal lives, adults as well as adolescents are typically poor at evaluating and interpreting research evidence. The project has three subgoals. The first subgoal is theoretical: To advance our understanding of how students learn to reason scientifically. The second goal is instructional: To study how to teach strategies that people need to evaluate and interpret scientific research. The third subgoal is methodological: To develop techniques for adapting the microgenetic technique, involving small-grained quantitative and qualitative analyses, to classroom settings. The two proposed studies will be conducted in diverse New Jersey middle schools. Study 1 will be an expert-novice study investigating the nature of students' tacit reasoning schemas and how students' schemas differ conceptually from experts'. This study will generate an understanding of the kinds of conceptual changes that are involved in learning reasoning schemas. Study 2 will be a microgenetic study that tracks students in six classes over 4 to 5 months as they learn from instruction that incorporates reasoning seminars. Building on preliminary work with middle school students, the project will develop seminars modeled on graduate research seminars. The research seminars will be implemented by integrating a variety of evidence evaluation activities into the middle-school life-sciences curriculum, including dramatic research scenarios, hands-on inquiry, PDA-based simulations, discussions of media reports of research, and multiple study evaluations. The overall goals of Study 2 are (a) to trace patterns of change in students' argumentation and reasoning and (b) to gain an understanding of the instructional events that engender these changes.