| Table 1 | NEMP tasks selected for this research |
| Table 2 | Investigative skills in NEMP tasks with links to the Living World and Planet Earth and Beyond strands of SNZC |
| Table 3 | Investigative skills in the NEMP tasks with links to the Physical World strand of SNZC |
| Table 4 | Investigative
skills in the the NEMP tasks with links to the Material World
strand of SNZC |
| Table 5 | Management of
variables/task discussed by groups of Year 4 children when planning
for the Truck Track task |
| Table 6 | Management of
variables/task discussed by groups of Year 8 children when planning
for the Ball Bounce task |
| Table 7 | Management of variables/task discussed by groups of Year 4 and Year 8 children when planning for the Emptying Rate task |
| Table 8 | The contrast
in types of discussion topics raised during the planning conversations
of Year 4 and Year 8 children |
| Table 9 | Instances of sharing planning ideas on how to sequence separate test events within a task |
| Table 10 | Truck Track variables attended to by Year 4 children when testing trucks facing forward and then backwards 20 |
| Table 11 | Aspects of measuring attended to by Year 4 children during the Truck Track testing stage |
| Table 12 | Comparison of Ball Bounce variables attended to by Year 8 children at the planning and carrying out stages |
| Table 13 | Aspects of measuring that were attended to by Year 8 children during the carrying out stage of the Ball Bounce task |
| Table 14 | Emptying Rate variables attended to at the carrying out stage |
| Table 15 | Aspects of measuring
that were attended to during the carrying out stage of the Emptying Rate task |
| Table 16 | Year 4 children’s interpretation of the Truck Track task |
| Table 17 | Year 4 children’s reflective ideas for making Truck Track more accurate |
| Table 18 | Year 4 children’s predictions for the Truck Track task |
| Table 19 | Children’s interpretation of the Ball Bounce task |
| Table 20 | Children’s personal theories of the causes of bounce |
| Table 21 | Patterns in predictions made for the Emptying Rate task |
| Table 22 | Patterns in teacher interactions with groups/tasks |
| Table 23 | Teaching levels of the focus group participants |
| Table 24 | Teachers’ responses to Strategy One |
| Table 25 | Teachers’ responses to Strategy Two |
| Table 26 | Teachers’ responses to Strategy Three |
| Table 27 | Teachers’ responses to Strategy Four |
| Table 28 | Teachers’ responses to Strategy Five |
| Table 29 | Teachers’ responses to Strategy Six |
| Table 30 | Teachers’ responses to Strategy Seven |
| Table 31 | Teachers’ responses to Strategy Eight |
| Figure 1 | A “modal epistemology” for sixth grade students in a traditional American class |
| Figure 2 | A “modal
epistemology” for sixth grade students who had experienced teaching
with a specific focus on knowledge building processes |
| Figure 3 | Planning sheet for the Truck Track task — option for younger students |
| Figure 4 | Examples of card pairs |
| Figure 5 | Sequence description provided to teachers |
| Figure 6 | Model of categoric data table for Ball Bounce |
| Figure 7 | Recording sheet for a series of tests |
| Figure 8 | Fair testing in the context of wider investigations |
APPENDICES
| 1. | Using NEMP to inform the teaching of scientific skills |
| 2. | Sample of feedback sheet for focus group sessions |
A substantial
proportion of this project was funded by the Unit for Studies of Educational
Assessment, Education Department (USEE) at Canterbury University, via
Ministry of Education funds set aside for researching aspects of the
National Education Monitoring Project (NEMP) data. We are grateful to
the NEMP staff in Dunedin who helped us obtain the sample of tapes and
loaned us the specialist equipment with which to view them. Alison Gilmore,
of the USEE team, provided valuable advice as the project was being
shaped.
In this project we have attempted to draw together empirical data from
several diverse fields. Expert advice is crucial in such a process.
We are indebted to Associate Professor Miles Barker of The University
of Waikato who challenged us to rethink aspects of the developmental
framework we have proposed. As Prof. Barker noted, such an exercise
is as much about saying what cannot be included/assumed as it is about
shaping and organising findings that are relevant to the exercise. Dr.
David Symington provided a valuable international perspective. He challenged
us to address moving beyond fair testing, and the drawing of theory/evidence
links, more definitively than we had done at the stage when he read
the report. Section Seven substantially owes its existence to this challenge.
Robyn Baker acted as a sounding board at various critical stages of
the project, like Prof. Barker and Dr. Symington drawing on her deep
expertise in science education. Rachel Bolstad provided insightful critique
on the first draft and assisted with the focus group stage of the research.
Kristina Louis was our super-sleuth in the process of searching for
relevant literature. Her skills saved us much time and effort. Edith
Hodgen and her team provided data support for collating and using the
empirical data generated by the NEMP tape observations. Lia Mapa helped
with observations of the Ball Bounce task.
Finally, we thank the teachers in the three focus groups, who gave up
after-school time to work with us, and generously shared their professional
expertise. Two of the groups met in school staff rooms, and we thank
those host schools for their hospitality.
This research builds on an earlier NEMP probe study which found that many
teachers do not appear to actively teach students the key objectives of
the “Developing Scientific Skills and Attitudes” strand of
Science in the New Zealand Curriculum (Gilmore, 2001). This project
sought to develop rich descriptions of children’s investigative
actions, and to analyse these findings in the light of research literature
that describes children’s actual and potential investigative skills
development. The analyses generated were then used to inform the design
of teaching strategies that could help children to actively develop the
skills specified in SNZC.
Two hundred video-taped episodes of Year 4 or Year 8 groups of children
carrying out 3 different NEMP science investigation tasks were closely
observed and subsequently analysed with reference to the review of the
research literature. (The tasks were Truck Track, Ball Bounce,
and Emptying Rate.) The strategies identified as a result of
the analysis for the active teaching of investigative skills were tried
out and critiqued by 24 primary teachers during after-school focus group
sessions in 3 different areas.
We found that children’s actions are influenced in subtle ways by
teachers’ instructions and dialogue. However there is a range of
relatively simple measures that NEMP assessors, and indeed all primary
teachers, can undertake to help children actively learn the skills of
investigating “scientifically”. Key areas for making such
modifications are summarised below.
The literature suggested that children can recognise “fair tests”
before they are able to produce these independently. The NEMP observations
showed that when children are asked to carry out pre-devised “investigations”
this recognition may take the form of intuitive actions, carried out silently
with no discussion during any stage of the investigation. Providing younger
children with opportunities to select fair tests during assessment might
allow them to better display their developing skills.
Children need to have many rich exploratory experiences from which to
build a library of causal mechanisms. Only then can they draw on these
to shape their own investigative questions, and/or explanations of the
phenomena they explore. When presented with a prescribed task, children
may perceive little meaning beyond task completion in the actions they
carry out. Unless the context is familiar, children may struggle to recognise
variables that need to be controlled, or to develop a considered causal
theory that gives a sense of science meaning to their investigation. Providing
opportunities to display planning knowledge at the end of an assessed
investigation rather than at the beginning could help to overcome this
challenge. If NEMP assessors are to draw out more insights into children’s
causal reasoning, this will probably need to be scripted into their formal
talk, because few do so spontaneously.
Year 8 children recognise and acknowledge more features of fair tests
than Year 4 children. They are more likely to control at least some variables,
although they do not usually display any other types of development in
their approach to/understanding of fair testing. The understanding that
there can be interactions between different variables is identified in
the literature as an important developmental step and is an essential
aspect of mature scientific reasoning. However this seems to be a neglected
component of school science investigative tasks.
Children find
measuring laborious and the context of a task can greatly influence the
measuring skills demanded of them. Unfamiliar measuring tools distract
from the main focus, vertical scales introduce errors of parallax, and
so on. The act of measuring, followed by written recording, seems to partition
sequential tests into distinct episodes so that they are not immediately
seen as parts of a whole, coherent test design. Simplification of measuring
may be an important strategy that frees children to pay more attention
to the overall patterns and purposes of the tests they are carrying out.
Collection of categoric rather than continuous data is one such strategy.
Even when they have planned a series of tests, children may “lose
their way” and deviate from their intended plan part way through
an investigation. Children’s more limited memory capacity has been
linked to their investigative ability and so perhaps exacerbates this
effect. Visual strategies bring more of the overall investigation structure
and/or results into view simultaneously, helping to transcend memory demands.
Such strategies support children’s ability to identify fair tests,
and/or to see meaningful data patterns from single repeated tests, or
from sequences of tests.
Children typically ignore experimental error, apart from occasional single
instances of repetition when a result diverges too widely from what they
expected. However the literature suggests that they do understand that,
even though individual results vary, main effects are robust. With encouragement
to explore patterns of data variability, the process of test repetition
might be made more meaningful.
Teachers are attracted to strategies for teaching science investigative
skills that have a strong visual element, especially simple, visual, data
recording strategies that make strong links to Mathematics in the
New Zealand Curriculum. They have a concern to use science investigations
to stimulate both science learning and language development, especially
for mixed-ability classes and for ESOL children.