Science Learning and Scientific Reasoning

描述（由申请人提供）：科学学习和科学推理本申请涉及广泛的挑战领域（12）科学，技术，工程和数学教育（STEM）和具体的挑战主题，12- od -101：促进STEM能力的教育方法的功效。在STEM教育中，广泛接受的教学目标不仅包括发展扎实的内容知识，还包括发展一般的科学推理能力，使学生能够在未来的职业生涯中成功地处理开放式的现实世界任务。该项目的目标是开发一个研究基础设施，以进行系统的研究和评估广泛使用的互动参与和基于探究的教育干预对培养学生科学推理能力的有效性。为了实现研究目标，我们将进行四个方面的研究和开发：(1)完善和完善科学推理的标准化评估工具，以产生一个有效和易于使用的评估工具，适合大规模的定量评估。(2)评估几个教育项目和创新对发展科学推理能力的影响。(3)为不同年龄和背景的学生建立大规模的国内和国际科学推理定量评估数据库。(4)建立一个用户和研究人员社区，以支持未来促进科学推理的教育研究和发展。这些新的发展将为教育工作者和研究人员提供重要的工具、实际的例子和资源，以及开发和实施课程或干预措施的坚实的研究知识库，这些课程或干预措施有效地帮助学生获得STEM领域的内容理解和一般科学推理能力。这个项目将直接影响到数百名教师和研究人员以及数万名学生。该项目的成果将对公众对STEM教育的看法和期望，以及我们如何教育下一代科学和技术产生长期持续的影响。这些成果也将有助于我们的教育系统从以内容为导向的教学转变为能力培养，这将培养出更具竞争力的下一代劳动力，以维持社会的繁荣。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Science Learning and Scientific Reasoning This application addresses broad Challenge Area (12) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education (STEM) and specific Challenge Topic, 12-OD-101: Efficacy of educational approaches toward promoting STEM competencies. In STEM education, widely accepted teaching goals include not only the development of solid content knowledge but also the development of general scientific reasoning abilities that will enable students to successfully handle open-ended real-world tasks in their future careers. The goal of this project is to develop a research infrastructure for conducting systematic studies and evaluation of the effectiveness of widely used interactive engagement and inquiry based education interventions on developing students' ability in scientific reasoning. To achieve the research objectives, we will conduct four areas of studies and developments: (1) Refine and complete a standardized assessment instrument on scientific reasoning to produce a valid and easy-to-use assessment tool suitable for large scale quantitative evaluations. (2) Evaluate the effectiveness of several education programs and innovations in their impacts on developing scientific reasoning ability. (3) Develop a large scale national and international quantitative assessment database on scientific reasoning for students from different age groups and backgrounds. (4) Develop a community users and researchers to sustain future research and development in education that promotes scientific reasoning. These new developments will provide educators and researchers with vital instruments, practical examples and resources, and a solid research knowledge base for developing and implementing curricula or interventions that are effective in helping students gain both content understanding and general scientific reasoning abilities in STEM areas. This project will make direct impact to hundreds of teachers and researchers and tens of thousands of students. The products of this project will make long-term sustained impact on the public's views and expectations of STEM education and how we teach future generations in science and technology. The outcomes will also help the transition of our education system from content-oriented teaching to ability fostering, which will produce a more competitive next generation workforce to sustain the prosperity of our society. Public Health Relevance: The goal of this project is to develop a research infrastructure for conducting systematic studies and evaluation of the effectiveness of widely used interactive engagement and inquiry based education interventions on developing students' ability in scientific reasoning. These new developments will provide educators and researchers with vital instruments, practical examples and resources, and a solid research knowledge base for developing and implementing curricula or interventions that are effective in helping students gain both content understanding and general scientific reasoning abilities in STEM areas.