Probe Studies

This report presents the findings of a three-stage research project that was conceived with an intention to inform the active teaching of investigative skills in primary science. The first stage involved the observation of 200 taped episodes of Year 4 or Year 8 groups of children carrying out NEMP science tasks. The analysis of the collated observations was informed by a review of the literature on the development of children’s investigative skills. The insights generated by these 2 stages were then used to devise some strategies for the active teaching of investigative skills at the primary school level. In the third stage of the project, these activities were tested and commented on by 3 focus groups of primary teachers.

BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH
A previous NEMP probe study in the area of science education highlighted the challenge of helping teachers to “build bridges” between existing NEMP tasks and their actual classroom pedagogy (Gilmore, 2001). Gilmore noted that the “Developing Scientific Skills and Attitudes” strand of Science in the New Zealand Curriculum seems to pose particular challenges in that many teachers do not appear to actively teach students the key objectives of this strand. This finding is supported by the literature review of effective pedagogy for raising student achievement in science that was jointly carried out by NZCER and the CSTER team at Waikato University (Hipkins, Bolstad, Baker, Jones, Barker, Bell, Coll, Cooper, Forret, France, Haigh, Harlow, and Taylor, 2002). Hipkins et al. found that teachers tend to focus on “fair testing”, ignoring other types of scientific investigations. This narrow focus provides a very limited basis for actively teaching investigative skills. This situation is exacerbated by the outdated focus on technology, at the expense of developing explicit nature of science (NOS) understandings, in the first strand of Science in the New Zealand Curriculum.

It seemed to us that a detailed analysis of carefully selected NEMP tasks in which children have been recorded on video in the process of carrying out actual scientific investigations could provide useful data to inform the active teaching process. The proposal was initially designed at a time when the team working on the Ministry of Education-funded Science Exemplars project had been charged with the additional and partially retrospective responsibility1 of developing a matrix that included scientific investigation skills. The matrix thus devised2 specifies the nature of student achievement for the “Developing Scientific Skills and Attitudes” strand of SNZC in considerable detail. In this context, we also wondered if the planned systematic comparisons of Year 4 and Year 8 children’s investigative actions might support teachers’ interpretation and any potential revision of the Exemplars Matrix by providing a somewhat more streamlined guide for evaluating children’s learning progress in this area.

THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS
As they were originally conceived, the research questions were:

OVERVIEW OF THE TASK ANALYSIS
It was our original intention to select 3 widely different NEMP tasks, so that we could cover all of the investigative skills categories on the Exemplars Matrix. To identify suitable tasks, we developed a grid to match components of all NEMP science tasks to key criteria from the matrix. This process is described more fully in Section Two. We planned to analyse 100 instances of each selected task. In the event, the 3 tasks chosen were more similar than we had anticipated because few of the other tasks showed the same potential to cover a number of the categories of the Exemplars Matrix. (This comparative analysis of potential matches between the NEMP tasks and the Exemplars Matrix is presented in Section Two.) A consequence of the specific selection process employed has been that we too have focused on “fair testing”, despite our awareness of the need to widen the types of science investigations that are carried out in schools.

For reasons that are outlined in Section Two of the report, the planned 100 observations were made for only one of the 3 tasks (Emptying Rate). Fifty examples of each of the other 2 selected tasks (Truck Track and Ball Bounce) were analysed as follows:

Table 1
NEMP tasks selected for this research

Name of task/year of administration	No. of Year 4 groups observed	No. of Year 8 groups observed
Emptying Rate (95 and 99)	50	50
Truck Track (95 and 99)	50	NR
Ball Bounce (95 and 99)	NR	50

All 3 tasks were “trend tasks”, that is the same task was used and data reported and compared for both the 1995 and 1999 science rounds (Crooks and Flockton, 2000), although the actual tapes observed all originated from the 99 round of tests. A brief summary of each task follows.

Truck Track
A flat ramp, supported by 1, 2, 3 or 4 corks was used to investigate the travel distance of a small toy truck. As well as altering the slope of the ramp by varying the number of corks supporting it, Year 4 children could investigate the travel patterns of trucks as they ran either forwards or backwards down the ramp. Trucks ran across a provided square of material at the end of the ramp. A three-fold builder’s rule was provided for measuring distance.

Ball Bounce
Year 8 students were given a selection of balls of varying diameters, weights, and material composition. Using a long, folding ruler positioned on a desk-top they were asked to determine which ball was the bounciest.

Emptying Rate
Children were provided with an improvised funnel made from a clear PEP beverage bottle with the bottom end cut off and a hole drilled in the lid. The bottle was inverted and marked at 3, 6, and 9 cm up the sides away from the lid. Using a stop-watch children were asked to determine the time it took water to drain when the funnel was filled to each of these 3 marks, and then to do the same for detergent. Groups of Year 4 children and other groups of Year 8 children completed this same task.

INSIGHTS FROM OTHER LITERATURE SOURCES
The impetus for this research was generated in part by the concern that observational data per se are not a sufficient basis on which to describe progressions in children’s skills. Of course that is as true of our own observations of children working on NEMP tasks as of observations made by the team of science advisers who worked with primary teachers to develop the science exemplars. While our analysis of the NEMP tasks was being carried out, we also sought insights on the development of children’s investigative skills from the considerable literature on this subject. The literature in cognitive psychology, in particular, has a concern to explain how and/or why skills develop in the actual sequences that children display. It seemed to us that this explanatory dimension would add to our research. While we cannot claim any direct links between this literature and our own observations, some of the findings reported do seem to us to provide useful potential explanations for the patterns we observed. Accordingly, findings from the literature are threaded through the next 3 sections of the report as follows.

In Section Three, the results of the analyses of the 3 NEMP tasks are reported. The main focus is on those stages of the investigative process at which it is possible to make detailed observations of, and comments about, children’s investigative skills – that is, the actual stage of carrying out the investigation. While the tasks appear to test children’s investigative skills at all stages of the investigative process, critique from the literature suggests that they actually represent an inadequate basis on which to determine children’s planning skills, or to assess their ability to draw conclusions from data. This critique is explored in the context of all 3 NEMP tasks.

Section Four reviews the research literature to describe findings that illuminate the manner in which children’s investigative skills may develop over time and/or with appropriate learning experiences. This research is linked to the findings from the analysis of the NEMP tapes where appropriate. In Section Five we then draw these various literature threads together to suggest some broad patterns in the development of children’s investigative skills. These are presented within a framework of 5 clusters of meta-level attributes, with descriptions of the associated investigative actions that children might display. Each cluster is accompanied by suggestions of areas of attention for the active teaching of science investigation skills.

Section Six draws the collected findings together to describe some simple strategies for the active teaching of investigative skills to primary school children. Teachers’ opinions about these activities, and their comments about their current teaching of investigative skills, are also outlined. Finally, Section Seven outlines some areas for further exploration and debate.