Developing, Testing, and Disseminating Reasoning Chain Construction Tools for Introductory Physics and Chemistry Courses

该项目旨在通过开发工具来更好地理解和提高大学生在化学和物理课程背景下的推理能力，从而为国家利益服务。尽管几十年来的工作旨在通过开发和实施基于研究的教学材料来提高学生的科学学习，但新出现的证据表明，在一项任务中表现出正确概念理解和推理的学生往往无法在需要相同知识和技能的类似任务中进行富有成效的推理。这种推理困难在教学后的持续存在令人担忧，因为推理技能的发展可能是大学物理科学教学最重要的成果之一。然而，许多现有的基于研究的物理和化学评估并没有提供足够的洞察学生的推理方法，因为它们没有被设计成将推理与概念理解分开。该项目旨在通过开发和传播在线推理链构建评估（ORCCA）工具和讲师指南来应对这一挑战，这些工具和指南旨在纳入大学水平的物理和化学课程。项目团队还将使用开发的评估工具进行研究，以更好地了解学生对化学和物理的推理。在这个项目中，来自四所机构（北达科他州立大学、缅因大学、宾夕法尼亚州立大学-大阿勒格尼分校和北佛罗里达大学）的研究小组将通过开发物理和化学课程的在线推理链构建评估（ORCCA）工具来研究和寻求提高学生的推理能力。根据推理的双过程理论，研究人员发现推理不一致性通常源于人类推理倾向与相关学科特定知识和技能之间的相互作用。在线推理链构建评估工具向学生呈现推理元素，即关于物理情况的陈述以及相关概念和数学关系，并促使学生将它们组合成一个论点来回答目标问题，而这些问题往往会引起错误的直觉反应。该项目将侧重于物理入门、普通化学和有机化学课程，并将：(1)开发、完善和传播ORCCA工具；(2)开发、完善和传播筛选目标问题对，提供学科知识和持续应用这些知识所需的推理技能的衡量标准；(3)产生关于学生推理的跨学科知识；(4)为评估和教学开发ORCCA工具和筛选目标对的使用指导手册。该项目将采用混合方法顺序探索性设计，利用定性和定量分析，并将借鉴认知科学的各种实验技术和框架。传播将包括在科学期刊上发表成果、在国家会议上举办讲习班、在线获取评估工具和教员资源，以及为试点地点实施orcca提供个性化支持。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project seeks to serve the national interest by developing tools to better understand and improve college students’ reasoning skills in the context of chemistry and physics courses. Despite decades of work aimed at improving students’ science learning by developing and implementing research-based instructional materials, emerging evidence suggests that students who demonstrate correct conceptual understanding and reasoning on one task often fail to reason productively on analogous tasks that require the same knowledge and skills. The persistence of such reasoning difficulties after instruction is concerning since the development of reasoning skills is possibly one of the most important outcomes of college instruction in the physical sciences. However, many existing research-based assessments for physics and chemistry do not provide sufficient insight into student reasoning approaches because they were not designed to disentangle reasoning from conceptual understanding. This project seeks to address this challenge by developing and disseminating online reasoning chain construction assessment (ORCCA) tools and instructor guides designed to be incorporated into college-level physics and chemistry courses. The project team will also use the assessment tools developed to conduct research to better understand student reasoning about chemistry and physics.In this project, a research team from four institutions (North Dakota State University, University of Maine, Penn State University - Greater Allegheny, and University of North Florida) will examine and seek to improve student reasoning by developing online reasoning chain construction assessment (ORCCA) tools for physics and chemistry courses. Drawing upon dual-process theories of reasoning, researchers have found that reasoning inconsistencies often stem from the interplay between human reasoning tendencies and relevant discipline-specific knowledge and skills. Online reasoning chain construction assessment tools present students with reasoning elements, i.e., statements about the physical situation as well as related concepts and mathematical relationships, and prompt the students to assemble them into an argument to answer a target question that often elicits incorrect intuitive responses. This project will focus on introductory physics, general chemistry, and organic chemistry courses, and will: (1) develop, refine, and disseminate ORCCA tools; (2) develop, refine, and disseminate screening-target question pairs that provide measures of both disciplinary knowledge and the reasoning skills necessary to apply that knowledge consistently; (3) generate cross-disciplinary knowledge about student reasoning; and (4) develop instructor guides for the use of ORCCA tools and screening-target pairs for both assessment and instruction. The project will employ a mixed-methods sequential exploratory design, leveraging both qualitative and quantitative analyses, and will draw upon a variety of experimental techniques and frameworks from cognitive science. Dissemination will include publications of results in scientific journals, workshops at national meetings, online access to assessment tools and instructor resources, and individualized support for pilot sites in implementing ORCCAs. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.