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SCIENTIFIC REASONING: RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ASSESSMENT

Han, Jing
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366204433

Abstract Details

2013, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Physics.
Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) is emphasized worldwide. Reports from large-scale international studies such as TIMSS and PISA continually rank U.S. students behind many other nations. As a result, the U.S. has increased its emphasis on the implementation of a more extensive science and mathematics curriculum in K-12 education. In STEM education, widely accepted teaching goals include not only the development of solid content knowledge but also the development of general scientific abilities that will enable students to successfully handle open-ended real-world tasks in future careers. One such ability, scientific reasoning, is closely related to a wide range of general cognitive abilities such as critical thinking and reasoning. Existing research has suggested that scientific reasoning skills can be trained and transferred. Training in scientific reasoning may also have a long-term impact on student academic achievement. In the STEM education community, it has been widely agreed that student development of transferable general abilities is at least as important as certain learned STEM knowledge. Therefore, it is important to investigate how to implement a STEM education program that can help students develop both STEM content knowledge and scientific reasoning. In order to develop such a knowledge base and to assess and evaluate the impact and effectiveness of education methods and resources, we need good assessment tools that can be easily applied in large scale and produce valid results comparable across a wide range of populations. This dissertation project establishes a first step to systematically improve the assessment instrumentation of scientific reasoning. A series of studies have been conducted, which include (1) a detailed validation study of the Lawson’s test, which has identified a number of validity issues including item/choice design issues, item context issues, item structure and wording issues (e.g. two-tier design), the limited scale of measurement range, and the ceiling effect for advanced students, (2) a study to determine the basic measurement features of the Lawson’s test with large scale data, (3) A data-mining study of Lawson’s test data, which helps identify learning progression behaviors of selected scientific reasoning skills. The results also provide evidence for researchers to evaluate and model the scoring methods of two-tiered questions used in the Lawson’s test, and (4) A study with randomized testing to investigate the learning progression of the skill of control of variables (COV), which showed a series of fine grained intermediate levels of COV skills. This project produces rich resources for sustained research and development on scientific reasoning. It establishes a valuable baseline for teachers and researchers to apply the Lawson’s test in research and teaching and a solid foundation for researchers to further develop the next generation assessment instruments on scientific reasoning.
Lei Bao, Dr. (Advisor)
Fengyuan Yang, Professor (Committee Member)
Andrew Heckler, Professor (Committee Member)
Evan Sugarbaker, Professor (Committee Member)
243 p.
Education; Educational Evaluation; Physics
Scientific reasoning; Reasoning Assessment; Physics Education; Science Method

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Han, J. (2013). SCIENTIFIC REASONING: RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ASSESSMENT [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366204433

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Han, Jing. SCIENTIFIC REASONING: RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ASSESSMENT. 2013. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366204433.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Han, Jing. "SCIENTIFIC REASONING: RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ASSESSMENT." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366204433

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.