Most studies of questioning have focused on teacher-posed questions. In other studies, students have been trained to ask more and better questions through intensive instruction apart from the ongoing academic program. However, cognitive strategies (such as questioning) are developed best within the framework of an academic subject. In the current study, questioning skills were taught to high school students of chemistry in the context of their laboratory experiments. / Since both intellectual development and questioning skills are causally related to problem solving, the effect of intellectual development on the learning of questioning skills was investigated in this study. The Piagetian model of intellectual development was chosen for its demonstrated effects on many important aspects of science instruction. / The dependent variable in this study was a composite score on a modification of the Science Inquiry Assessment Instrument. This measured the number and quality of research questions asked by a chemistry student after seeing an unanticipated event (a short investigation of surface tension) in a laboratory setting. Such discrepant events are known to lead the student to a conceptual conflict which may be reduced by seeking further information through asking research questions. Each such question suggests a particular change in a variable operating in the event at hand and asks about that change's effect on the observations. The measure of intellectual development used in this study was the paper-and-pencil Classroom Test of Formal Operations. / The experimental treatment lasted 12 weeks and involved printed lessons which taught high school chemistry students to ask research questions in response to observations that they did not anticipate in their regularly scheduled laboratory experiments. The control treatment group did not receive these printed lessons. Both groups were taught the same chemistry subject matter by the same teacher during the 12 weeks. / Four intact sections of Advanced (first-year) Chemistry students were chosen. Two of them were assigned to the experimental treatment condition while the remaining two were assigned to the control treatment condition. Half of the students in each condition took the questioning pretest. One hundred and eight students completed the treatment. The significance of the effects of the pretest, treatment and intellectual development on the posttest scores was evaluated through an analysis of the variance of these posttest scores. / The pretest enhanced the posttest performance of the experimental treatment group. However, it diminished the control treatment group's posttest performance. By analyzing the posttest scores of unpretested students only, the experimental treatment effect was found to be statistically significant, accounting for 14% of the variance of the posttest scores. However, the level of intellectual development had no effect on these posttest scores. These effects also were shown when 64 pretested students of General (first year) Chemistry were divided into these treatment conditions. / The lessons developed in this study, when used in the ongoing academic laboratory program, enable high school chemistry students (of "general" and "advanced" ability levels) to ask more and better research questions. The Piagetian level of intellectual development of the student does not affect the effectiveness of this instruction, as measured by the research questioning ability instrument used in this study. / Further research could investigate the dependence of research questioning ability on facility with propositional logic rather than with a variety of types of formal operational thought. Another study could investigate the effect of intellectual development upon the ability to ask research questions which go beyond the variables suggested by the materials at hand. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-03, Section: A, page: 1011. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74104 |
| Contributors | HARTFORD, FREDERIC WILLIAM., The Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 244 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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