The “Questioning-Exploration-Experience” (QEE), a teaching and learning method underpinned by constructivist theory, was developed by Cheng and further refined by Cheng and Chan in 2001. This thesis documents and evaluates the effectiveness of five- to six-year-old children’s learning when a teacher used this method to promote children’s understanding of the concept of (air) motion. The evaluation was conducted in a preschool operated by a tertiary institution in Hong Kong, and a teacher who was experienced in using the QEE method and her 14 students participated in the study. They were observed for six days over a period of one month when children were working on a task of making a wind bell. Under the QEE method, the children began the inquiry process by posing questions about constructing the wind bell. They then formulated hypotheses, tested them through exploration, and refined their questions repeatedly. The children reflected on their learning experiences in order to generate new questions. Teacher questioning was also a critical aspect of this process. The children and teacher spent a total of 323 minutes on the task and the sessions were videotaped. There was a total of 2,927 utterances in 863 conversational turns, and these were analyzed to examine the relationship between the levels of teacher questioning and the children’s responses to reflect the levels of children thinking. There were five of these levels identified. The first three are considered to involve lower-order thinking: level 1 ("yes/no"); level 2 ("what"); and level 3 (“elaborate") questions and responses. The next two can be considered as higher-order thinking: level 4 (“logical”) and level 5 ("critical") questions and responses. The results indicated that the teacher dominated the interactions and spoke 43% of the time, while children spoke for the remaining time (57%). Of the 139 minutes during which the teacher talked, she spent 97 minutes (70% of the time) posing 887 questions: level 1 was used the most often accounting for 41% of the interactions, followed by level 5 (17%), level 2 (16%), level 3 (14%), and level 4 (12%). The total time for which the children spoke was 184 minutes with 1653 responses. Children gave level 3 responses (28%) most frequently, followed by levels 2 (27%), 1 (26%), 5 (12%), and 4 (7 %), respectively. The relationship between the teacher’s questions and children’s responses was analyzed. An exact correspondence between the level of teacher thinking and children’s responses occurred 46% of the time (398 turns). Simply put, when the teacher asked a question requiring a “what” response, the child typically gave “what” information. Within the 398 turns, 41% of this direct correspondence occurred at level 1, followed by 20% at level 2, 17% at level 5, 13% at level 3, and 9% at level 4. The greatest number of correspondences occurred with questions that required “yes/no” responses, and the least with “logical” questions. In the QEE inquiry process, the teacher’s questioning had a strong influence on the children’s scientific thinking and played a critical role in promoting children’s knowledge construction. The teacher used questioning to define an area of inquiry, specify a problem to be solved, lead children to test hypotheses, evaluate their results and determine their understanding at various points during the process. Questioning, by both the teacher and the children, was critical in promoting the children’s scientific understanding. The impact of QEE in fostering conceptual change in knowledge construction was traced along three paths. The first path in the questioning defined the central question of inquiry. The second path, exploration, was concerned with identifying the information needed to solve the problem. The third path, experience, involved restructuring the concepts of the central question to apply the new understanding in a new situation. Findings also suggest that children’s knowledge construction is signified by the achievement of four elements: identification of a central question for inquiry, evaluation of the question about learning, provision of ways in which to answer the question, and critical reasoning. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Education

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this study is to explore and document the nature of children's participation in elementary school science in British Columbia, Canada. Using an ethnographic approach, extensive fieldnotes provide the foundation addressing the question "What is the activity of science in an elementary school?" Although current science curriculum documents continue to cast science at school as a possible mirror of science in the 'real' world, this is a thesis about elementary school science and a community of inquiry that evolves at school. Instead of separating process and content, this thesis emphasizes their co-emergence. Drawing upon sociocultural and enactivist perspectives, the focus is on learning and context, learner and content as they co-evolve. This study was conducted in one elementary class at the intermediate level (Grade 6/7) across one school year. The teacher and I collaborated to plan and teach science with a focus on creating opportunities for children to participate. Children embarked on three extensive science adventures with their teacher, working in teams of four or five and learning as a community of inquiry. Using audio taped records of children's and the teacher's comments, children's creations, as well as my fieldnotes, I construct a narrative of one year of school science. Researcher, children, and teacher describe what it means to participate in a diversity of ways and, if we wish to understand how children learn science it is important to listen. Data analysis reveals the importance of contexts for participation in elementary school science. In particular, I identify "spaces of inquiry" that afforded students diverse opportunities to participate with science content in a community of inquiry. They are generative spaces, rehearsal spaces, and performative spaces. Spaces of inquiry are important because they provide an alternative way to think about learning and teaching science, they provide opportunities for designing collaborative group work, and they challenge educators to consider children's contributions to their science learning. Overall, this ethnographic study illustrates a dynamic interdependence of learners and their environment in this open-ended, creative adventure in and through school science.

The original aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a teaching approach based on the Means of Assisting Performance (MAP) by Tharp and Gallimore (1988) in the teaching of science to Grade 5 (Standard three) level. The basic method was to compare performance of three Grade 5 classes using pretest and post-test. One class (Grade SA) was taught for three weeks using an intervention programme which was based on the MAP teaching approach. A second class (Grade 58), received a teaching approach which was based on a "traditional teaching" technique. 80th classes were taught by the researcher. A 3rd class (Grade Se) was not taught by the researcher and this class was included in order to measure test effect. The information obtained from these tests was supplemented by qualitative observation of the pupils at work, interviews with teachers and pupils at the school. A general science topic (soil) was chosen with a focus on proportional reasoning skills. Because of the difficulties which arose, the study concentrated on investigating the skill level which learners demonstrated when answering questions on proportional relationships in Grade 5 at Khwezi Primary, and looking at strategies that learners at this level of development use in solving proportional problems. The results obtained in this study suggest the following. (i) Learners tested in this study showed a low-level use of the intuitive skills which are needed in laying the necessary foundation for the development of advanced proportional reasoning abilities. (ii) The strategies which were used by the learners tested were those referred to as incomplete, qualitative, and additive strategies as well as guessing. (iii) Strategies used by the learners tested in this study were similar to the strategies used by similar learners tested by other researchers in other parts of the world. The intervention was short, and no substantial gains in the skill of proportional relationships were observed. The teaching methodology based on MAP brought about changes to the learning styles of the learners. Learners were not just recipients of information but were active role players in the learning process. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

The investigation conducted for this thesis endeavoured to determine to what extent a relationship exists between pre-service elementary school teacher enjoyment of participating in science laboratory activities in a university-level background science course and their understanding of the science involved in those activities. A student enjoyment score for two science laboratory activities was generated from survey data. A student understanding score was generated from responses to relevant questions on the final exam of the course. A step-wise logistic regression was then conducted on the student enjoyment and understanding scores. Within the scope of the investigation described in this thesis, the findings lead to the conclusion that enjoyment appears to be unrelated to understanding.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

The Scientific Attitude Inventory, TSAI, was developed in an attempt to measure the Scientific Attitude of elementary teachers. Form D, the form used with the study population, was developed through a refinement technique involving three pre-test forms, Forms A, B, and C.From an original pool of items, fifty-three items were selected to constitute Form A. Form A was constructed and administered to a pre-test population for the purpose of refinement of individual items from the item pool. On the basis of an item analysis of the responses by the pre-test population, several of the items were revised.The revised items from Form A, together with newly written items constituted Form B. Form B was administered to a second pre-test population for the purpose of refinement of individual items. Several items of Form B were revised on the basis of an item analysis.The set of items which resulted from the pre-testing of Forms A and B, revised as appropriate, were submitted to a panel of judges in order to establish a response key and content validity of the items for the purpose of measuring the Scientific Attitude.Those items which were judged to have content validity constituted Form C. Form C was administered to a third pretest population in order to identify the set of items to be used in Form D, the form used with the study population.The identification of the set of items from Form C to be used in Form D was accomplished through a series of reductions in the number of items in Form C. On the basis of an item analysis, the items with the lowest item validity indices were removed from the instrument. The resultant version was scored and an item analysis made unisg the new instrument as the criterion measure. This procedure was repeated until diminishing returns were noticed in the split-halves reliability. The 45 items of Form C which produced the highest split-halves reliability were used in Form D and constituted Version 45 C.Inspection of the 45 items of Form C which were used in Form D revealed that with but one exception, the items which produced the highest item validity indices were items keyed "disagree." Therefore, in the construction of Form D, 25 additional items were uted keyed "agree" in order to achieve an apparent balance in the response key.A 70 item instrument, Form d, was administered to the study population of 224 elementary teachers in graduate study at the masters level in the Elementary Education Department of Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, during the Summer of 1969. The administration of Form D provided data and Norms of Performance for Form D, Version 45 C. This version of TSAI yielded a split-halves reliability of 0.72 with the study population.The complete 70 item instrument was also scored and analysed. Further, a series of reductions in the number of items, refining the form as an internal criterion measure of validity, was effected in the same manner as was used with Form C. Diminishing returns in split-halves reliability was seen beyond the 45 item set, identified as Form D, Version 45. This version yielded a split-halves reliability of 0.80. Version 65 of Form D, and each subsequent version in the reduction series yielded split-halves reliabilities equal to, or exceeding, 0.70, the minimum level of reliability specified in the design of the study. Norms of performance were compiled from the administration of Form D to the study population for each of the versions which yielded a reliability equal to, or greater than, 0.70.

The primary goal of this research project was to produce and test individually paced curricular materials designed to develop basic science process skill competency in preservice elementary school teachers. The four basic science process skills of observing, measuring, classifying, and predicting were identified for the study. Evidence accumulated through three approaches substantiated preservice teachers' needs for further development of these four process skills. The need for science process skill study was based upon recommendations of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, upon the results of a science process measure for teachers administered to a population of preservice elementary school teachers, and upon nine years of personal observation by the researcher in his capacity as a public school science supervisor.In developing the project a sequence of performance steps was established, taking into consideration current trends in elementary science education, individualization of instruction, and educational accountability. This systems model embodied the development of specifically stated performance objectives for each process skill identified for the study. Eight prototype process skills tests were constructed consisting of a pre/post-test for each of the four process skill areas. The tests were validated by expert opinion. Four individualized learning guides, one for each process skill area, were created to be used with preservice elementary school teachers inelementary science methods courses. An instructors' guide was developed to accompany the student materials. The format for each student guide included a rationale, performance objectives, and a sequence of activities designed to facilitate the attainment of the objectives. A different content carrier was selected to be used in developing each of the four process skill areas. Selected content from the Elementary Science Study program was used in the development of the observation process skill. Selected content from the Science-A Process Approach program was used in the development of the measuring process skill. Selected content from the Science Curriculum Improvement Study program was used in the development of the classifying process skill. And materials of the researcher's design, problem-solving activities related to the concept of change, were used in the development of the predicting process skill. The prototype materials were tested during the Spring and Summer Quarters of 1973 and revisions were made on the basis of this testing. The revised materials were pilot tested during the Fall Quarter of the 1973-74 school year with six sections of Ball State University elementary science methods students. As a result of the pilot testing a new multiple choice process pre/post-test was created and revisions in the teachers' guide were made. Final testing of the curricular materials occurred during the Winter Quarter of the 1973-74 school year with four sections of elementary methods students.Statistical treatment of the data collected during the final testing of the materials included analysis of individual pre/post-test scores, pre/post-test variance, per cent of growth applied to an established competency criterion and the application of a one-tailed t test testing the null hypothesis that the mean of the difference between the paired measures (pre/post-test scores) is zero.The feasibility of creating individually paced, science process skill curricular materials using a systems approach and merging selected content goals of elementary science methods with science process skill acquisition goals was established in this study. The population of preservice elementary school teachers who used the curricular materials met the established competency criterion for all four process skills. Data from this study provide a model for further development of other science process skill building curricular materials for pre service elementaryschool teachers.

This was a naturalistic investigation of the nature of elementary science teaching practice. The main purpose of the study was to portray, through description and comparison of teacher appreciations, now four elementary teachers of science perceived their worlds of practice. This study was based on the assumption that persons construct their realities and that teachers, as practitioners, also make their worlds of practice. Following Vickers (1983) and Schon (1987), "appreciation" was therefore used as a construct for examining and depicting key features of the teachers' practice. Appreciations of the teachers became the basis for exploring the nature and significance of their collaborative teaching. Findings of this exploratory study indicate that each teacher had a coherent but distinct set of appreciations of practice which included perceptions of professional identity and of preferences for practice. These appreciations appeared to colour a teacher's "style" of practice and expectations of self and of pupils. While the distinctiveness of a teacher's appreciations suggested that each teacher had a unique style of practice, teachers with similar or differing appreciations of practice engaged in productive, collaborative relationships with colleagues. Based on their appreciations of practice, teachers in the study seemed to have three major areas of concern and these were related to their instructional services to pupils, unit design and professional self-renewal. It is being suggested in this investigation that teacher collaboration was a strategy used by these teachers to enable them to handle their concerns practicably and efficiently. The implications of these findings are presented in terms of contributions to the practice of teaching and to theory and research on teaching/ in particular studies of the "culture" of teaching. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate