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The impact of light-weight inquiry with computer simulations on science learning in classrooms
Journal Pre-proof The impact of light-weight inquiry with computer simulations on science learning in classrooms Chia-Jung Chang, Chen-Chung Liu, Cai-Ting Wen, Li-Wen Tseng, Hsin-Yi Chang, Ming-Hua Chang, Shih-Hsun Fan Chiang, Fu-Kwun Hwang, Chih-Wei Yang PII:
S0360-1315(19)30323-9
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103770
Reference:
CAE 103770
To appear in:
Computers & Education
Received Date: 26 June 2019 Revised Date:
13 October 2019
Accepted Date: 25 November 2019
Please cite this article as: Chang C.-J., Liu C.-C., Wen C.-T., Tseng L.-W., Chang H.-Y., Chang M.-H., Fan Chiang S.-H., Hwang F.-K. & Yang C.-W., The impact of light-weight inquiry with computer simulations on science learning in classrooms, Computers & Education (2019), doi: https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103770. This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
The impact of light-weight inquiry with computer simulations on science learning in classrooms Chia-Jung Chang1, Chen-Chung Liu2, Cai-Ting Wen3, Li-Wen Tseng3, Hsin-Yi Chang4, Ming-Hua Chang2, Shih-Hsun Fan Chiang2, Fu-Kwun Hwang5, Chih-Wei Yang6 1
Department of Information Technology, Takming University of Science and Technology, Taiwan 2
Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan 3 Graduate Institute of Network Learning Technology, National Central University, Taiwan 4 Program of Learning Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan 5
Department of Physics, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan Graduate Institute of Educational Information and Measurement, National Taichung University of Education, Taiwan 6
Abstract Pedagogical design for science learning in classrooms often involves tension between the scientific community expectations and traditional curricular expectations. To address this issue, this study proposed a light-weight inquiry activity that can be pragmatically implemented in regular classrooms based on the minimalism principle and the teacher-led collaboration principle. Data gathered from 49 middle school students indicated that after learning in the light-weight inquiry condition, students demonstrated significant enhancements in the target science knowledge. In particular, the students in the light-weight inquiry condition displayed significantly higher levels of enhancement in scientific literacy than those who learned in the traditional lecturing condition. Furthermore, the students perceived a higher level of deep motivation and strategy but a lower level of memorizing science facts and calculating and practicing when they learned in the light-weight inquiry condition. The proposed pedagogical design demonstrated a positive impact on the learning of science knowledge, scientific literacy, and conceptions of learning and approaches to learning science. However, an unexpected effect was also observed, showing that the light-weight inquiry activity might also trigger surface motivation reflecting students’ fear of failure in tests and the orientation to meet external expectations. The implications of the educational practice are discussed, and directions for future studies
are also addressed. Keywords: Improving classroom teaching, simulations, pedagogical issues, teaching/learning strategies Correspondence: Chen-Chung Liu Graduate Institute of Network Learning Technology National Central University No.300, Jhongda Rd., Jhongli City, Taoyuan County 32001, Taiwan (R.O.C.) Telephone: (+886) 3-4227151 ext. 35412 Departmental fax: (+886) 3-4221931 Email: [email protected]
The impact of light-weight inquiry with computer simulations on science learning in classrooms Abstract Pedagogical design for science learning in classrooms often involves tension between the scientific community expectations and traditional curricular expectations. To address this issue, this study proposed a light-weight inquiry activity that can be pragmatically implemented in regular classrooms based on the minimalism principle and the teacher-led collaboration principle. Data gathered from 49 middle school students indicated that after learning in the light-weight inquiry condition, students demonstrated significant enhancements in the target science knowledge. In particular, the students in the light-weight inquiry condition displayed significantly higher levels of enhancement in scientific literacy than those who learned in the traditional lecturing condition. Furthermore, the students perceived a higher level of deep motivation and strategy but a lower level of memorizing science facts and calculating and practicing when they learned in the light-weight inquiry condition. The proposed pedagogical design demonstrated a positive impact on the learning of science knowledge, scientific literacy, and conceptions of learning and approaches to learning science. However, an unexpected effect was also observed, showing that the light-weight inquiry activity might also trigger surface motivation reflecting students’ fear of failure in tests and the orientation to meet external expectations. The implications of the educational practice are discussed, and directions for future studies are also addressed.
Keywords: Improving classroom teaching, simulations, pedagogical issues, teaching/learning strategies
1. Introduction Science educators have pointed out that the pedagogical design for science learning in classrooms often involves tension between the scientific community expectations and traditional curricular expectations. The scientific community expectations endeavor to build students’ competencies in using and building evidence-based and explanatory models of the world that go beyond helping students learn the scientific knowledge
(Osborne, 2014; Passmore, Gouvea, & Giere, 2014). Educators have argued that pedagogical transformation is needed to better support meaningful engagement in scientific practices which leverage the expectation of scientific communities and the curricular goals (Berland, Schwarz, Krist, Kenyon, Lo, & Reiser, 2016). However, under the curricular constraints including time and assessment requirements, teachers are allowed limited space for students to participate in scientific inquiry activities, which reduces their perception of science learning as meaningful. As a result, when learning with a didactic approach to fulfill the curricular expectations, students often hold less deep motivation and show a low tendency to apply deep strategies, while at the same time considering science learning as memorizing scientific facts to pass the test (Chang, Liu, & Tsai, 2016). Computer simulations have been regarded as one of the effective approaches to facilitating inquiry-based learning in science education as they enable students to experience the process of scientific inquiry (Eckhardt, Urhahne, Conrad, & Harms, 2013; Vreman-de Olde, de Jong, & Gijlers, 2013). Computer simulations visualize abstract scientific concepts with appropriate representations and provide an interactive space for students to explore relationships between multiple variables (van Joolingen, de Jong, Lazonder, Savelsbergh, & Manlove, 2005). Previous studies have confirmed the benefit of using computer simulations in promoting students’ understanding of science knowledge (Gijlers & de Jong, 2013), facilitating conceptual change (Lee, Jonassen, & Teo, 2011), and developing inquiry skills (Smetana & Bell, 2012). Therefore, computer simulations have been extensively applied to augment science teaching and learning (Rutten, van Joolingen, & van der Veen, 2012; Smetana & Bell, 2014). Meanwhile, extensive studies have integrated collaborative learning with computer simulations to enhance science learning in classrooms. The literature suggests that collaborative learning is helpful for assisting students in constructing scientific knowledge through group discussion (Lin, Duh, Li, Wang, & Tsai, 2013) and for fostering students’ inquiry skills (Pedaste & Sarapuu, 2014). Moreover, students in pairs have exhibited better learning outcomes than individual students (Manlove, Lazonder, & de Jong, 2009). However, it has been suggested that computer simulations do not necessarily guarantee effective and productive science learning (Zacharia et al., 2015). How computer simulations are orchestrated with related
resources under physical classroom constraints largely impacts the effectiveness of the use of simulations. Even though technologies and software tools are widely available in schools, the impact of the technology-enhanced learning paradigm in science classrooms is still limited (Hickey, Taasoobshirazi, & Cross, 2012). How computer simulations should be effectively integrated into science curricula in regular classrooms is challenging for teachers (Scanlon, Anastopoulou, Kerawalla, & Mulholland, 2011). Extensive studies have indicated that learning with technologies is time consuming and often adds too much complexity for teachers (Sharples et al., 2015; Roschelle, Dimitriadis, & Hoppe, 2013). The orchestration issue, which refers to the methods empowered by technologies an educator may adopt to engage students in activities conducive to learning in classrooms, becomes critical to use simulations in regular classrooms (Chan, 2013). The consideration is that teachers face challenges in leveraging multiple resources and extrinsic constraints including time, curriculum relevance, discipline constraints, and assessment constraints, and the resources should be arranged in an effective way to support everyday classroom teaching (Dillenbourg, 2013). To address the practical considerations of implementing new technology-enhanced learning in classrooms, multiple pedagogical design principles have been discussed. For instance, the minimalism principle emphasizes the spirit of “less is more” (Buxton, 2001), suggesting that the teaching/learning activity should minimize the teacher’s extrinsic orchestration load when handling any complexity created by the technology or the activity itself (Dillenbourg, 2013). Furthermore, the teacher-led collaboration principle suggests that the integration of teacher guidance and direction with collaborative learning activities is necessary to reduce the frustration of students with low prior knowledge when participating in low-structured activities (Raes & Schellens, 2016). It is believed that the learning scenarios can be as effective as researchers expect in the classroom only when the technological tools and activities are appropriately orchestrated.
In this vein, this study proposes a light-weight inquiry activity that can be pragmatically implemented in regular classrooms to address the scientific community
expectations, curricular expectations, and the orchestration considerations. The light-weight activity was designed based on the minimalism principle and the teacher-led collaboration principle. More specifically, it engages students in the science inquiry process with computer simulations under the guidance of the teacher with the knowledge goal and time constraints defined by the predefined curriculum. According to the teacher-led collaboration principle, a group of students were guided to work together to construct the knowledge in the timeframe set by the curriculum using a pre-defined worksheet designed by the teacher. In accordance with the minimalism principle, the activity minimizes the dependency on technology and therefore each student group only used a shared iPad to operate the computer simulation to participate in the inquiry. It was hoped that this light-weight inquiry activity could help students not only gain the knowledge defined by the curriculum, but also promote their scientific literacy and help them build sophisticated conceptions of science learning and understanding of the approaches to learning science.
A comparative study was conducted to compare the impacts of the light-weight inquiry activity and the traditional teaching approach. Multiple data from 49 middle school students including their conceptual test, scientific literacy test and conceptions of learning science and approaches to learning science were collected and analyzed to answer the following research questions: RQ1: Does the light-weight inquiry activity improve students’ knowledge learning outcomes? RQ2: Does the light-weight inquiry activity enhance students’ scientific literacy? RQ3: Does the light-weight inquiry activity influence students’ conceptions of learning sciences and approaches to learning sciences? 2. Method 2.1 Participants This study adopted a quasi-experimental design to understand how students learned science in the light-weight inquiry activity and traditional instruction. The participants of this study were 49 eighth-grade students from two intact classes at a middle school
in northern Taiwan, aged 14 to 15 years. The two intact classes were randomly assigned to the light-weight inquiry (LW) and traditional instruction (TI) groups. Twenty-five students (13 boys and 12 girls) participated in the TI group while 24 students (13 boys and 11 girls) participated in the LW group. The instruction of the TI group mainly adopted a didactic teaching approach with textbooks (described later). The students of the LW group were divided into five groups of four to five to participate in the light-weight inquiry (described later). None of the students in the two groups reported prior experience of using computer simulation to learn science. The two groups were instructed by the same science teacher in two regular classrooms where a projector and an interactive whiteboard were provided.
The study presented in this paper is a part of the work of a 3-year project aiming to build computer simulations and pedagogical activities to foster middle school students’ scientific competency in regular classroom contexts. This project built 52 computer physics simulations of the topics covered in Taiwan national middle school curriculum to support science teaching (available at https://cosci.tw/). As there are many physics topics covered in the curriculum, we selected the teaching and learning of the buoyancy as the main focus of this study since it is one of the main physics topics in the middle school and involves multiple concepts that require multiple teaching sessions rather than a single-session teaching activity. Furthermore, the concepts of buoyancy such as Archimedes’ principle and floating and sinking are conceptually difficult for middle school students (Radovanović & Sliško, 2013). This is because student built the concepts of buoyancy through limited everyday experiences and thus many of them are alternative conceptions (e.g. big things sink) (Yin, Tomita, & Shavelson, 2008). The two groups had not learned these concepts prior to the experiment. The LW and TT groups showed no significant difference in their scores in the school physics test before the experiment (t=.51, p>.05), indicating that they had similar prior physics knowledge. 2.2 Procedure The learning activity of the buoyancy concept lasted for four 45-minute sessions. In each session, the TI groups mainly participated in a 10-minute demonstration activity followed by a 30-minute lecture on the buoyancy concepts and a 5-minute drill and practice activity. The purpose of the demonstration activity was to introduce the
buoyancy concept by using lab equipment. Due to the limitation of the equipment, only one student came to the stage to operate the equipment under the instruction of the teacher. The teacher instructed the student to demonstrate the buoyancy experiment step by step according to the guidance provided by the textbook. After the observation, the teacher instructed the target buoyancy concepts and then led a practice and drill activity to consolidate the concepts learned. Such an arrangement of the learning activity is to help students efficiently gain the knowledge that is required by the curriculum.
The learning activity of the LW group also lasted for four 45-minute sessions. Differing from the TI group, the instruction of the LW group was closely integrated with the scientific inquiry activity with computer simulations. Figure 1 displays the orchestration of the light-weight inquiry activity in a regular classroom. Such a design aims to help students not only acquire buoyancy concepts through inquiry, but also develop scientific literacy within the time constraint of the curriculum. 2.3 The light-weight inquiry The orchestration of the light-weight inquiry activity followed the minimalism and the teacher-led collaboration principles. Regarding the minimalism principle, the orchestration only required a minimal set of technologies that enabled each student group to run simulations of the scientific experiment on a shared iPad, and most of the activities were supported by paper worksheets and a classroom whiteboard. Regarding the teacher-led collaboration principle, the teacher guided the student groups to go through each of the inquiry processes using a worksheet to test hypotheses and build understanding of buoyancy. After the inquiry activity, the teacher led a reflective discussion on the conclusions drawn by each group. It is hoped that such an orchestration allowed students to experience the scientific practice to construct science knowledge with low-level technological requirements under the curricular time constraint.
Figure 1. The computer simulation for Buoyancy ----------------------------------Insert Figure 1 here ----------------------------------The light-weight inquiry activity started with a demonstration activity. The teacher demonstrated how she went through the inquiry phases, that is, experiment design, simulation, data analysis, and drawing conclusions to verify a hypothesis: “the larger an object is, the easier it will sink” with the computer simulation related to buoyancy. The simulation allows teachers and students to operate the density of the liquid (ehoS), the volume (V) and mass (M) of the object that will be dropped into the liquid. The simulation also displays the readings of three scales showing the relation among the weight of the object, the buoyancy force, and the weight of the liquid crowded out by the object. During the demonstration activity, the teacher introduced the tasks which had to be performed in each phase.
Reflective activity
Interactive whiteboard Group1
Map
Group2
Group4
Inquiry activity
Group3
Present and share group Conclusion
Group5
Writing board
Simulation Selected hypothesis
Selected hypothesis
Selected hypothesis
Worksheet
Drawing conclusion
Data Analysis
Setting variables
Drawing conclusion
Collaborative simulation
Data Analysis
Setting variables
Collaborative simulation
Data Analysis
Setting variables
Data Analysis
Collaborative simulation
Selected hypothesis
Selected hypothesis
Drawing conclusion
Drawing conclusion
Setting variables
Collaborative simulation
Drawing conclusion
Data Analysis
Setting variables
Collaborative simulation
Figure 2. The orchestration of the light-weight inquiry activity in a regular classroom ----------------------------------Insert Figure 2 here ----------------------------------After the demonstration activity, the students then took part in the inquiry activity to understand the factors influencing the Buoyancy force. As shown in Figure 2, the class was divided into groups of five students. Each group was given an iPad by which they can jointly operate the computer simulation while each student was given a worksheet guiding him/her to work through the inquiry phases. After the inquiry activity, each group shared their conclusion on the whiteboard. The whole inquiry process was detailed below:
The hypothesis and prediction phase: The goal of the activity is to help the students to build understanding of the target concepts included in the curriculum during a predefined timeframe. Therefore, this study did not ask students to generate hypotheses on their own. In other words, student groups were given six pre-defined hypotheses to be tested during the inquiry activity. In this phase, they needed to write down their prediction of whether the hypotheses would be valid or not on their own worksheets.
The experiment design phase: Students in a group discussed and designed
appropriate experiments by setting up the values of the variables in the computer simulation to test the hypotheses provided. The simulation allowed them to test the hypotheses through experiments with three variables, that is, the volume of an object (V), the mass of an object (M), and the density of the liquid. Each student documented the experiment design on his/her own worksheet.
The simulation phase: Students in groups conducted the experiment they designed together using the computer simulation on the iPad. They needed to negotiate the design of the experiment and work together to conduct the experiment as there was only one shared iPad for each group. Such a design is to reduce the technological complexity associated with the orchestration of the activity. The students needed to gather useful experiment data for subsequent analysis on their own worksheets.
The data analysis and conclusion phase: Each student compared whether their prediction was consistent with the experiment outcomes and then drew personal conclusions through the analysis of the data collected on their worksheet. Then, all group members were asked to discuss to generate a shared conclusion in the hope of helping them verify their conclusion through peer discussion.
The teacher then led a whole-class reflection activity to help the students reflect upon the buoyancy concept and the inquiry process. Each student group presented their conclusion on the classroom whiteboard and described their scientific inquiry process in front of the class. After the sharing activity, the teacher gave students feedback about the inquiry process and the conclusions for each group. The teacher then led the whole class to go through a set of reflective questions about buoyancy concepts to consolidate the students’ understanding of the key concepts. 2.4 Instruments --Conceptual learning test A learning test was developed for the study to examine the students’ understanding of the target concepts before and after the instruction activity. The pre- and post-test both consisted of 10 questions in a multiple-choice format. Although the pre- and post-test questions were different, the two tests were isomorphic in their questions. To ensure the validity of the tests, each question was literally revised by two senior physics teachers. Therefore, the pre- and post-tests could help us to understand how the
students learned after the TI and LW activities. --Scientific literacy test A scientific literacy test was developed based on the OECD framework (OECD, 2016) to evaluate students’ scientific literacy associated with buoyancy before and after the learning activity. The test probes students’ competencies in three dimensions: explain phenomena scientifically, evaluate and design scientific enquiry, and interpret data and evidence scientifically. The purpose of this test is not to evaluate general inquiry competencies but those associated with buoyancy. Therefore, the test involves only seven questions which are closely related to the target concepts. Of the seven questions, two are for the evaluation of the competency of explaining phenomena scientifically (SC-A), two are for the design of scientific enquiry (SC-B), and three are for the interpretation of the data and scientific evidence (SC-C). It should be noted that one question of the SC-B was only presented in the post-test, since this question involves far transfer of the buoyancy concepts and students could not answer it before they learned these concepts. It was hoped that the inclusion of this question in the post-test could help us better understand the impact of the two learning activities. Students’ answers were evaluated by two independent evaluators according to how well their answers satisfied the scientific inquiry principles. If a student’s answer could not explain the cause of a certain science phenomenon, it was scored as 0 points. If a student’s answer could only partially explain the cause, it was scored as 1 point. If a student’s answer was correct and provided complete explanation, it was scored as 2 points. The inter-rater kappa reliability coefficient of the two researchers on the preand post-test were 0.97 and 0.91, indicating that the evaluation was highly reliable. --Conceptions of Learning Science and Approaches to Learning Science Questionnaires One of the purposes of this study is to understand the influence of the light-weight inquiry and traditional instruction on students’ conceptions of learning science and their approach to learning science. The Conceptions of Learning Science (COLS) questionnaire and the Approaches to Learning Science (ALS) questionnaire developed by Lee, Johanson, and Tsai (2008) were thus applied in this study to achieve this goal. The two questionnaires have been widely used to probe junior students’ perceptions of learning science (Chang, et al., 2016) and the questions were closely related to the
context of this study. The COLS consists of 46 questions on a 5-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree) in seven dimensions, including memorizing (8 items), testing (7 items), calculating and practicing (6 items), increase of knowledge (7 items), applying (6 items), understanding (6 items), and seeing in a new way (6 items). These dimensions could reflect students’ conceptions of learning science after the two different instructions. The question items of the COLS questionnaire were slightly modified to meet the context of this study. The overall Cronbach’s alpha value was .92 after modification, and each dimension was at least .81 (ranging from .81 to .92). Regarding the approaches to learning science, the ALS is composed of 24 questions in four dimensions, including deep motivation (8 items), deep strategy (6 items), surface motivation (5 items), and surface strategy (5 items). The question items of the ALS questionnaire were also slightly adapted to fit the context of this study. The overall Cronbach’s alpha value was .85, and each dimension was at least .70, showing that the adapted questionnaire was sufficiently reliable. The two questionnaires were used together to achieve a better understanding of the impact of the light-weight inquiry and traditional instruction. 2.5 Data analysis The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the two learning activities on the students’ knowledge gain, scientific literacy, and their perceptions of learning sciences. Multiple data sources, including the students’ scores on the conceptual learning test, the scientific literacy test, and their perceptions of COLS and ALS obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed to achieve this goal. The conceptual learning test results of the LW and TI groups were analyzed using one-way analysis of covariance (ANVOCA) to understand the impact of the two activities on the learning of buoyancy (RQ1). The ANCOVA, which used the pre-test scores as the covariate, compared the post-test scores of the LW and TI groups to answer RQ1. Furthermore, the scientific literacy test scores of the LW and TI groups were separately analyzed using a paired t test to understand how the students learned in the two different activities. The scientific literacy test scores of the LW group and the TI group were further compared using ANCOVA to understand the impact of the two activities. The analyses were integrated to answer RQ2. Regarding RQ3, the
students’ feedback on the COLS and ALS before and after the activities were also compared using ANCOVA to understand the changes in students’ conceptions of and approaches to science learning after the LW and TI learning activities. 3. Results 3.1 The conceptual learning test The analysis of the conceptual learning pre- and post-test shows that both the LW and TI groups demonstrated significant enhancement. The score of the LW group increased from 3.36 to 5.44 (t=-5.78, p<.05), while the TI group increased from 3.79 to 6.21 (t=-7.47, p<.05), suggesting that both of the instruction approaches enhanced students’ understanding of Buoyancy. However, as shown in Table 1, the ANCOVA analysis indicated that there is no significant difference between the two groups’ enhancement (F=2.58, p>.05). Students in both groups demonstrated similar levels of enhancement of the science knowledge of Buoyancy. Table 1. The results of the conceptual learning test of the LW and TI groups Group
N
Pre-test
Post-test
M
SD
M
SD
TI
24
3.79
1.64
6.21
2.34
LW
25
3.36
1.44
5.44
1.66
F
P
2.58
.115
3.2 Scientific literacy The results of the paired t test for the scientific literacy pre- and post-test of the two groups are displayed in Table 2. The students in the TI group gained significantly higher scores on the SC-B category in the post-test than in the pre-test (t=-3.61, p<.01). Regarding the LW group, the students demonstrated significantly higher overall scores in the post-test than in the pre-test (t=-3.89, p<.01). More specifically, the improvement can be found in the SC-B category (t=-2.00, p<.01) and the SC-C category (t=-2.06, p<.05), and a marginally significant enhancement was found for SC-A (t=-2.00, p=.06). These results indicated that students who participated in the light-weight inquiry activity gained significant enhancement in the scientific literacy test. Further analysis of the two groups with the ANCOVA in Table 3 reveals that the LW group exhibited significantly higher scores on the SC-C category than did the TI group (F=7.34, p<.01). Such results suggest that the light-weight inquiry approach,
compared with the TI approach, is helpful for improving students’ ability in interpreting data and evidence scientifically. Table 2. The paired t test for the scientific literacy tests of the TI and LW groups Groups Dimensions Pre-test Post-test T P M SD M SD TI Overall 1.41 .83 1.51 .79 -.57 .58 (N=24) SC-A .50 .47 .65 .35 -1.32 .20 SC-B .23 .33 .45 .32 -3.61** <.01 SC-C .68 .29 .65 .28 .16 .65 LW (N=25)
Overall SC-A SC-B SC-C * p<.05; ** p<.01
1.28 .38 .20 .62
.79 .39 .38 .22
1.81 .54 .43 .73
.87 .32 .28 .26
-3.89** -2.00 -3.10** -2.06*
<.01 .06 <.01 .05
Table 3. ANCOVA analysis of the scientific literacy tests of the LW and TI groups Scientific Group N Adjusted Std. err. F P Literacy Mean TI 24 1.47 .14 2.38 .13 Overall LW 25 1.85 .14 TI 24 .63 .07 1.29 .26 SC-A LW 25 .55 .07 TI 24 .45 .06 .10 .76 SC-B LW 25 .44 .05 TI 24 .64 .05 7.34** <.01 SC-C LW 25 .74 .05 * p<.05; ** p<.01 3.3 Students’ perceptions of COLS and ALS The students’ feedback on the COLS before and after the activity were analyzed using ANCOVA. Table 4 displays that the TI group perceived a significantly higher level of “memorizing” (F=4.18, p<.05), and a marginally significantly higher level of “calculating and practicing” (F=3.49, p=.07) to learn science than the LW group. However, the LW group perceived a marginally significantly higher level of “seeing in a new way” to learn science than the TI group (F=3.06, p=.09). These results suggest that, compared with the TI approach, the light-weight inquiry approach may contribute to transforming students’ conceptions of learning science from a view of memorizing facts or drill and practice activities to a more advanced view.
Regarding the students’ ALS, the results as shown in Table 5 indicated that the students in the LW group held a significantly higher level of deep motivation (F=4.11, p<.05) and deep strategy (F=9.72, p<.05) than the TI group. Such results reflect that, compared with the traditional instruction, the light-weight inquiry approach not only increased the student’ intrinsic motivation, but also helped them to apply deeper strategies to learn science. Surprisingly, the students in the LW group also perceived a higher level of surface motivation than those in the TI group (F=5.15, p<.05). As surface motivation is related to fear of failure in tests and the orientation to meet external expectations, such results reflect that the students went through the light-weight inquiry activity holding an even higher level of anxiety about their learning performance on tests. This can be shown in their responses to the question: “Even when I have studied hard for a science text, I worry that I may not be able to do well on it.” The LW group exhibited significantly higher levels of anxiety for this question than the TI group did (F=6.38, p<.05). Table 4. ANCOVA analysis of the conception of learning science of the LW and TI groups COLS
Std. err.
F
p
3.23
.09
4.18*
.05
25
2.96
.09
TI
24
3.12
.11
2.46
.12
LW
25
2.89
.10
Calculating and
TI
24
3.46
.10
3.49
.07
practicing
LW
25
3.21
.10
Increase of knowledge
TI
24
3.45
.10
.39
.535
LW
25
3.54
.09
TI
24
3.25
.10
2.52
.119
LW
25
3.48
.10
TI
24
3.53
.10
.39
.534
LW
25
3.62
.10
TI
24
3.40
.10
3.06
.09
LW
25
3.65
.10
Memorizing
Testing
Applying
Understanding
Seeing in a new way
* p<.05
Group
N
Adjusted Mean
TI
24
LW
Table 5. ANCOVA analysis of the approach to learning science of the LW and TI groups ALS Deep motivation
Deep strategy
Surface motivation
Surface strategy
Group
N
Adjusted Mean
Std. err.
F
p
TI
24
2.81
.08
4.11*
.05
LW
25
3.05
.08
TI
24
3.07
.11
9.72**
<.01
LW
25
3.57
.11
TI
24
3.01
.11
5.15*
.03
LW
25
3.36
.11
TI
24
2.86
.11
.33
.567
LW
25
2.77
.10
* p<.05; ** p<.01 4. Discussion and conclusion In 2007, Chan coined two main strands of technology-enhance learning (TEL) research, namely dream-based research and adoption-based research, in his keynote speech at International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education. According to Chan’s definiton, “dream-based research is to explore the potential application of emerging technologies to learning; adoption-based research intends to prove the feasibility of spreading TEL in the real world practice.’ As real classrooms involve complex constraints including time, space, curricular and technological limitations, technologies that work in dream-based research are not necessarily feasible in real classroom practices. Consistent with the notion of the adoption-based research, Dillenbourg’s notion of classroom orchestration addresses the need to understand the best practice that a teacher can adopt to manages multi-layered activities in such a multi-constraints context (Dillenbourg, 2013). In particular, the inquiry-based science teaching is time consuming and complex (Sharples et al., 2015). Although previous studies confirmed the positive effect of computer simulations in certain settings (Chang et al., 2017; Wen et al., 2018), how computer simulations can be positioned in classrooms requires more empirical studies. The contribution of this study relies on it sought to enhance the science learning experience in a regular science classroom under the curricular constraints. The light-weight inquiry activities were implemented to verify whether such an inquiry-based approach can be implemented in the regular curriculum.
This study compared the achievement in the conceptual learning test, scientific literacy test and conceptions of learning science and approaches to learning science of the students who participated in the light-weight inquiry activity and those who learned with traditional instruction. It was found that students in the two conditions demonstrated similar levels of enhancement in the target science knowledge. However, the students in the light-weight inquiry condition displayed significantly higher enhancement in the ability of interpreting data and evidence. Furthermore, the results also support that the students perceived a higher level of deep motivation and strategy but lower levels of memorizing science facts and calculating and practicing when they learned in the light-weight inquiry condition. Research has shown that well-designed inquiry learning with simulation can enhance students’ conceptual understanding of the concepts targeted in the simulation (Chang, 2017; Chiu, DeJaegher, & Chao, 2015; Thacker & Sinatra, 2019). This study also found that the students in the light-weight inquiry condition demonstrated significant enhancement in both the target science concepts and the scientific literacy test. Such a result is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Efstathiou et al., 2018; van Riesen, Gijlers, Anjewierden, & de Jong, 2018), indicating that the use of the computer-based experiment design tool had a positive effect on students’ inquiry skills, while the application of the computer tool can still help students achieve similar learning effects on the target science concepts compared with the traditional approach. Such an impact may be due to the design of the light-weight inquiry approach that enabled students to experience the inquiry process to verify the target science concepts on their own, rather than being taught by the teacher. They went through the data analysis process and drew conclusions to examine the target science concept and thus their scientific literacy was enhanced along with their science knowledge. This study focused on both knowledge gain and scientific literacy, and provides evidence that inquiry with simulation can promote students’ scientific literacy. Specifically, compared to traditional instruction, the light-weight inquiry approach resulted in significantly better improvement in the students’ scientific literacy in the aspect of scientific interpretation of data and evidence. Developing future citizens’ scientific literacy has been an important goal in science education standards
worldwide (NGSS Lead States, 2013; OECD, 2016; Ministry of Education, 2014). Although traditional instruction may also help develop students’ scientific literacy to some extent because proficient scientific literacy requires application of science knowledge (OECE, 2016), an inquiry approach has a unique benefit to student development of scientific literacy that traditional instruction cannot achieve. The light-weight design addresses the challenge that keeps many science teachers from using innovative pedagogical approaches such as inquiry with simulations (Hickey et al., 2012). By keeping the inquiry activities light-weight, teachers are more likely to incorporate inquiry into their teaching. The results of the present study support that the light-weight inquiry approach is helpful for promoting scientific literacy without reducing the learning of science knowledge under the regular science curriculum constraints. Conceptions of learning science involve how individuals construct their understanding or beliefs about learning science, which are built upon their actual learning experiences (Chiou, Liang, & Tsai, 2012; Entwistle & Perterson, 2004). In this study, we found that engaging students in the light-weight inquiry with a computer simulation environment reduced the number of students viewing learning science as memorizing, and has the potential to help students develop higher levels of conceptions, such as seeing and understanding in a new way. Specifically, the study provides evidence that students’ conceptions of learning science as memorizing are likely developed via traditional instruction and can be transformed through inquiry-oriented instruction. Educators may find that the light-weight inquiry activities are helpful for transforming students’ conceptions of learning science in regular curricula and for alleviating the negative impact of the instruction approach aimed at science knowledge gain. Research has found an overall trend in the relationship between individuals’ conceptions of learning and approaches to learning: those who possess lower levels of conceptions of learning tend to adopt surface approaches to learning, whereas those who possess higher levels of conceptions of learning tend to adopt deep approaches (Huang, Liang, & Tsai, 2018; Li, Liang, & Tsai, 2013; Shen, Lee, Tsai, & Chang, 2016). Moreover, a recent study has shown that learners who adopt deep approaches to learning are more likely to have better learning outcomes such as academic performances than those who adopt surface learning approaches (Liang, Chen, Hsu,
Chu, & Tsai, 2018). These studies indicate the important role of learners’ conceptions of and approaches to learning in their learning outcomes. Nevertheless, few studies have focused on designing interventions to help students develop high levels of conceptions of science learning and deep approaches to learning science. In this study, we designed a light-weight inquiry with a computer simulation environment and provided evidence that this environment helped the students develop deep motivations and deep strategies for learning science. 5. Future works The light-weight inquiry approach demonstrated how inquiry can be implemented in regular science classrooms under the curricular constraints. It demonstrated the positive impact on the learning of science knowledge, scientific literacy, and conceptions of learning and approaches to learning science. However, an unexpected effect was also observed, showing that the light-weight inquiry with the computer simulation environment might also trigger surface motivation, reflecting students’ fear of failure in tests and the orientation to meet external expectations. Although research has indicated that it is common that students may develop mixed learning approaches (Wang & Tsai, 2018), such an increase in surface motivation may be attributed to inconsistency between the pedagogical approach and the school-level assessment. In this study, the students still had to participate in the school-level assessment aiming to test
students’ science knowledge level,
although
they learned
with
the
inquiry-oriented instruction. Such an inconsistency increased students’ fear of failure in the school-level assessment as they did not participate in the drill and practice activities as often as they had done before. As this study is only a short-term intervention, future investigations with long-term interventions are needed to discern the reasons behind this phenomenon. Furthermore, the participants of this study were middle school students. Students at different stages may participate in and react to the proposed inquiry activity differently. Whether the elementary school or high school students’ conceptions of learning and approaches to learning will be influenced by the light-weight inquiry activity requires further investigation. Gathering information on these issues through further studies can help to obtain a thorough understanding of this pedagogical innovation and thereafter an inquiry approach can be designed to enhance science learning in a broader context. References
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Acknowledgments This research was partially funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology under contract numbers 106-2511-S-008 -012 -MY3, and 107-2511-H-008 -003 -MY3.
Highlights A light-weight inquiry activity was proposed to enhance the science literacy.
Such an approach improved students’ ability in interpreting data and evidence. Students perceived a higher level of deep motivation and strategy. It transformed a view of memorizing or drill and practice into sophisticated views.
It also triggered a surface motivation (e.g. students’ fear of failure in tests).
S0360-1315(19)30323-9
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103770
Reference:
CAE 103770
To appear in:
Computers & Education
Received Date: 26 June 2019 Revised Date:
13 October 2019
Accepted Date: 25 November 2019
Please cite this article as: Chang C.-J., Liu C.-C., Wen C.-T., Tseng L.-W., Chang H.-Y., Chang M.-H., Fan Chiang S.-H., Hwang F.-K. & Yang C.-W., The impact of light-weight inquiry with computer simulations on science learning in classrooms, Computers & Education (2019), doi: https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103770. This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
The impact of light-weight inquiry with computer simulations on science learning in classrooms Chia-Jung Chang1, Chen-Chung Liu2, Cai-Ting Wen3, Li-Wen Tseng3, Hsin-Yi Chang4, Ming-Hua Chang2, Shih-Hsun Fan Chiang2, Fu-Kwun Hwang5, Chih-Wei Yang6 1
Department of Information Technology, Takming University of Science and Technology, Taiwan 2
Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan 3 Graduate Institute of Network Learning Technology, National Central University, Taiwan 4 Program of Learning Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan 5
Department of Physics, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan Graduate Institute of Educational Information and Measurement, National Taichung University of Education, Taiwan 6
Abstract Pedagogical design for science learning in classrooms often involves tension between the scientific community expectations and traditional curricular expectations. To address this issue, this study proposed a light-weight inquiry activity that can be pragmatically implemented in regular classrooms based on the minimalism principle and the teacher-led collaboration principle. Data gathered from 49 middle school students indicated that after learning in the light-weight inquiry condition, students demonstrated significant enhancements in the target science knowledge. In particular, the students in the light-weight inquiry condition displayed significantly higher levels of enhancement in scientific literacy than those who learned in the traditional lecturing condition. Furthermore, the students perceived a higher level of deep motivation and strategy but a lower level of memorizing science facts and calculating and practicing when they learned in the light-weight inquiry condition. The proposed pedagogical design demonstrated a positive impact on the learning of science knowledge, scientific literacy, and conceptions of learning and approaches to learning science. However, an unexpected effect was also observed, showing that the light-weight inquiry activity might also trigger surface motivation reflecting students’ fear of failure in tests and the orientation to meet external expectations. The implications of the educational practice are discussed, and directions for future studies
are also addressed. Keywords: Improving classroom teaching, simulations, pedagogical issues, teaching/learning strategies Correspondence: Chen-Chung Liu Graduate Institute of Network Learning Technology National Central University No.300, Jhongda Rd., Jhongli City, Taoyuan County 32001, Taiwan (R.O.C.) Telephone: (+886) 3-4227151 ext. 35412 Departmental fax: (+886) 3-4221931 Email: [email protected]
The impact of light-weight inquiry with computer simulations on science learning in classrooms Abstract Pedagogical design for science learning in classrooms often involves tension between the scientific community expectations and traditional curricular expectations. To address this issue, this study proposed a light-weight inquiry activity that can be pragmatically implemented in regular classrooms based on the minimalism principle and the teacher-led collaboration principle. Data gathered from 49 middle school students indicated that after learning in the light-weight inquiry condition, students demonstrated significant enhancements in the target science knowledge. In particular, the students in the light-weight inquiry condition displayed significantly higher levels of enhancement in scientific literacy than those who learned in the traditional lecturing condition. Furthermore, the students perceived a higher level of deep motivation and strategy but a lower level of memorizing science facts and calculating and practicing when they learned in the light-weight inquiry condition. The proposed pedagogical design demonstrated a positive impact on the learning of science knowledge, scientific literacy, and conceptions of learning and approaches to learning science. However, an unexpected effect was also observed, showing that the light-weight inquiry activity might also trigger surface motivation reflecting students’ fear of failure in tests and the orientation to meet external expectations. The implications of the educational practice are discussed, and directions for future studies are also addressed.
Keywords: Improving classroom teaching, simulations, pedagogical issues, teaching/learning strategies
1. Introduction Science educators have pointed out that the pedagogical design for science learning in classrooms often involves tension between the scientific community expectations and traditional curricular expectations. The scientific community expectations endeavor to build students’ competencies in using and building evidence-based and explanatory models of the world that go beyond helping students learn the scientific knowledge
(Osborne, 2014; Passmore, Gouvea, & Giere, 2014). Educators have argued that pedagogical transformation is needed to better support meaningful engagement in scientific practices which leverage the expectation of scientific communities and the curricular goals (Berland, Schwarz, Krist, Kenyon, Lo, & Reiser, 2016). However, under the curricular constraints including time and assessment requirements, teachers are allowed limited space for students to participate in scientific inquiry activities, which reduces their perception of science learning as meaningful. As a result, when learning with a didactic approach to fulfill the curricular expectations, students often hold less deep motivation and show a low tendency to apply deep strategies, while at the same time considering science learning as memorizing scientific facts to pass the test (Chang, Liu, & Tsai, 2016). Computer simulations have been regarded as one of the effective approaches to facilitating inquiry-based learning in science education as they enable students to experience the process of scientific inquiry (Eckhardt, Urhahne, Conrad, & Harms, 2013; Vreman-de Olde, de Jong, & Gijlers, 2013). Computer simulations visualize abstract scientific concepts with appropriate representations and provide an interactive space for students to explore relationships between multiple variables (van Joolingen, de Jong, Lazonder, Savelsbergh, & Manlove, 2005). Previous studies have confirmed the benefit of using computer simulations in promoting students’ understanding of science knowledge (Gijlers & de Jong, 2013), facilitating conceptual change (Lee, Jonassen, & Teo, 2011), and developing inquiry skills (Smetana & Bell, 2012). Therefore, computer simulations have been extensively applied to augment science teaching and learning (Rutten, van Joolingen, & van der Veen, 2012; Smetana & Bell, 2014). Meanwhile, extensive studies have integrated collaborative learning with computer simulations to enhance science learning in classrooms. The literature suggests that collaborative learning is helpful for assisting students in constructing scientific knowledge through group discussion (Lin, Duh, Li, Wang, & Tsai, 2013) and for fostering students’ inquiry skills (Pedaste & Sarapuu, 2014). Moreover, students in pairs have exhibited better learning outcomes than individual students (Manlove, Lazonder, & de Jong, 2009). However, it has been suggested that computer simulations do not necessarily guarantee effective and productive science learning (Zacharia et al., 2015). How computer simulations are orchestrated with related
resources under physical classroom constraints largely impacts the effectiveness of the use of simulations. Even though technologies and software tools are widely available in schools, the impact of the technology-enhanced learning paradigm in science classrooms is still limited (Hickey, Taasoobshirazi, & Cross, 2012). How computer simulations should be effectively integrated into science curricula in regular classrooms is challenging for teachers (Scanlon, Anastopoulou, Kerawalla, & Mulholland, 2011). Extensive studies have indicated that learning with technologies is time consuming and often adds too much complexity for teachers (Sharples et al., 2015; Roschelle, Dimitriadis, & Hoppe, 2013). The orchestration issue, which refers to the methods empowered by technologies an educator may adopt to engage students in activities conducive to learning in classrooms, becomes critical to use simulations in regular classrooms (Chan, 2013). The consideration is that teachers face challenges in leveraging multiple resources and extrinsic constraints including time, curriculum relevance, discipline constraints, and assessment constraints, and the resources should be arranged in an effective way to support everyday classroom teaching (Dillenbourg, 2013). To address the practical considerations of implementing new technology-enhanced learning in classrooms, multiple pedagogical design principles have been discussed. For instance, the minimalism principle emphasizes the spirit of “less is more” (Buxton, 2001), suggesting that the teaching/learning activity should minimize the teacher’s extrinsic orchestration load when handling any complexity created by the technology or the activity itself (Dillenbourg, 2013). Furthermore, the teacher-led collaboration principle suggests that the integration of teacher guidance and direction with collaborative learning activities is necessary to reduce the frustration of students with low prior knowledge when participating in low-structured activities (Raes & Schellens, 2016). It is believed that the learning scenarios can be as effective as researchers expect in the classroom only when the technological tools and activities are appropriately orchestrated.
In this vein, this study proposes a light-weight inquiry activity that can be pragmatically implemented in regular classrooms to address the scientific community
expectations, curricular expectations, and the orchestration considerations. The light-weight activity was designed based on the minimalism principle and the teacher-led collaboration principle. More specifically, it engages students in the science inquiry process with computer simulations under the guidance of the teacher with the knowledge goal and time constraints defined by the predefined curriculum. According to the teacher-led collaboration principle, a group of students were guided to work together to construct the knowledge in the timeframe set by the curriculum using a pre-defined worksheet designed by the teacher. In accordance with the minimalism principle, the activity minimizes the dependency on technology and therefore each student group only used a shared iPad to operate the computer simulation to participate in the inquiry. It was hoped that this light-weight inquiry activity could help students not only gain the knowledge defined by the curriculum, but also promote their scientific literacy and help them build sophisticated conceptions of science learning and understanding of the approaches to learning science.
A comparative study was conducted to compare the impacts of the light-weight inquiry activity and the traditional teaching approach. Multiple data from 49 middle school students including their conceptual test, scientific literacy test and conceptions of learning science and approaches to learning science were collected and analyzed to answer the following research questions: RQ1: Does the light-weight inquiry activity improve students’ knowledge learning outcomes? RQ2: Does the light-weight inquiry activity enhance students’ scientific literacy? RQ3: Does the light-weight inquiry activity influence students’ conceptions of learning sciences and approaches to learning sciences? 2. Method 2.1 Participants This study adopted a quasi-experimental design to understand how students learned science in the light-weight inquiry activity and traditional instruction. The participants of this study were 49 eighth-grade students from two intact classes at a middle school
in northern Taiwan, aged 14 to 15 years. The two intact classes were randomly assigned to the light-weight inquiry (LW) and traditional instruction (TI) groups. Twenty-five students (13 boys and 12 girls) participated in the TI group while 24 students (13 boys and 11 girls) participated in the LW group. The instruction of the TI group mainly adopted a didactic teaching approach with textbooks (described later). The students of the LW group were divided into five groups of four to five to participate in the light-weight inquiry (described later). None of the students in the two groups reported prior experience of using computer simulation to learn science. The two groups were instructed by the same science teacher in two regular classrooms where a projector and an interactive whiteboard were provided.
The study presented in this paper is a part of the work of a 3-year project aiming to build computer simulations and pedagogical activities to foster middle school students’ scientific competency in regular classroom contexts. This project built 52 computer physics simulations of the topics covered in Taiwan national middle school curriculum to support science teaching (available at https://cosci.tw/). As there are many physics topics covered in the curriculum, we selected the teaching and learning of the buoyancy as the main focus of this study since it is one of the main physics topics in the middle school and involves multiple concepts that require multiple teaching sessions rather than a single-session teaching activity. Furthermore, the concepts of buoyancy such as Archimedes’ principle and floating and sinking are conceptually difficult for middle school students (Radovanović & Sliško, 2013). This is because student built the concepts of buoyancy through limited everyday experiences and thus many of them are alternative conceptions (e.g. big things sink) (Yin, Tomita, & Shavelson, 2008). The two groups had not learned these concepts prior to the experiment. The LW and TT groups showed no significant difference in their scores in the school physics test before the experiment (t=.51, p>.05), indicating that they had similar prior physics knowledge. 2.2 Procedure The learning activity of the buoyancy concept lasted for four 45-minute sessions. In each session, the TI groups mainly participated in a 10-minute demonstration activity followed by a 30-minute lecture on the buoyancy concepts and a 5-minute drill and practice activity. The purpose of the demonstration activity was to introduce the
buoyancy concept by using lab equipment. Due to the limitation of the equipment, only one student came to the stage to operate the equipment under the instruction of the teacher. The teacher instructed the student to demonstrate the buoyancy experiment step by step according to the guidance provided by the textbook. After the observation, the teacher instructed the target buoyancy concepts and then led a practice and drill activity to consolidate the concepts learned. Such an arrangement of the learning activity is to help students efficiently gain the knowledge that is required by the curriculum.
The learning activity of the LW group also lasted for four 45-minute sessions. Differing from the TI group, the instruction of the LW group was closely integrated with the scientific inquiry activity with computer simulations. Figure 1 displays the orchestration of the light-weight inquiry activity in a regular classroom. Such a design aims to help students not only acquire buoyancy concepts through inquiry, but also develop scientific literacy within the time constraint of the curriculum. 2.3 The light-weight inquiry The orchestration of the light-weight inquiry activity followed the minimalism and the teacher-led collaboration principles. Regarding the minimalism principle, the orchestration only required a minimal set of technologies that enabled each student group to run simulations of the scientific experiment on a shared iPad, and most of the activities were supported by paper worksheets and a classroom whiteboard. Regarding the teacher-led collaboration principle, the teacher guided the student groups to go through each of the inquiry processes using a worksheet to test hypotheses and build understanding of buoyancy. After the inquiry activity, the teacher led a reflective discussion on the conclusions drawn by each group. It is hoped that such an orchestration allowed students to experience the scientific practice to construct science knowledge with low-level technological requirements under the curricular time constraint.
Figure 1. The computer simulation for Buoyancy ----------------------------------Insert Figure 1 here ----------------------------------The light-weight inquiry activity started with a demonstration activity. The teacher demonstrated how she went through the inquiry phases, that is, experiment design, simulation, data analysis, and drawing conclusions to verify a hypothesis: “the larger an object is, the easier it will sink” with the computer simulation related to buoyancy. The simulation allows teachers and students to operate the density of the liquid (ehoS), the volume (V) and mass (M) of the object that will be dropped into the liquid. The simulation also displays the readings of three scales showing the relation among the weight of the object, the buoyancy force, and the weight of the liquid crowded out by the object. During the demonstration activity, the teacher introduced the tasks which had to be performed in each phase.
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Setting variables
Collaborative simulation
Figure 2. The orchestration of the light-weight inquiry activity in a regular classroom ----------------------------------Insert Figure 2 here ----------------------------------After the demonstration activity, the students then took part in the inquiry activity to understand the factors influencing the Buoyancy force. As shown in Figure 2, the class was divided into groups of five students. Each group was given an iPad by which they can jointly operate the computer simulation while each student was given a worksheet guiding him/her to work through the inquiry phases. After the inquiry activity, each group shared their conclusion on the whiteboard. The whole inquiry process was detailed below:
The hypothesis and prediction phase: The goal of the activity is to help the students to build understanding of the target concepts included in the curriculum during a predefined timeframe. Therefore, this study did not ask students to generate hypotheses on their own. In other words, student groups were given six pre-defined hypotheses to be tested during the inquiry activity. In this phase, they needed to write down their prediction of whether the hypotheses would be valid or not on their own worksheets.
The experiment design phase: Students in a group discussed and designed
appropriate experiments by setting up the values of the variables in the computer simulation to test the hypotheses provided. The simulation allowed them to test the hypotheses through experiments with three variables, that is, the volume of an object (V), the mass of an object (M), and the density of the liquid. Each student documented the experiment design on his/her own worksheet.
The simulation phase: Students in groups conducted the experiment they designed together using the computer simulation on the iPad. They needed to negotiate the design of the experiment and work together to conduct the experiment as there was only one shared iPad for each group. Such a design is to reduce the technological complexity associated with the orchestration of the activity. The students needed to gather useful experiment data for subsequent analysis on their own worksheets.
The data analysis and conclusion phase: Each student compared whether their prediction was consistent with the experiment outcomes and then drew personal conclusions through the analysis of the data collected on their worksheet. Then, all group members were asked to discuss to generate a shared conclusion in the hope of helping them verify their conclusion through peer discussion.
The teacher then led a whole-class reflection activity to help the students reflect upon the buoyancy concept and the inquiry process. Each student group presented their conclusion on the classroom whiteboard and described their scientific inquiry process in front of the class. After the sharing activity, the teacher gave students feedback about the inquiry process and the conclusions for each group. The teacher then led the whole class to go through a set of reflective questions about buoyancy concepts to consolidate the students’ understanding of the key concepts. 2.4 Instruments --Conceptual learning test A learning test was developed for the study to examine the students’ understanding of the target concepts before and after the instruction activity. The pre- and post-test both consisted of 10 questions in a multiple-choice format. Although the pre- and post-test questions were different, the two tests were isomorphic in their questions. To ensure the validity of the tests, each question was literally revised by two senior physics teachers. Therefore, the pre- and post-tests could help us to understand how the
students learned after the TI and LW activities. --Scientific literacy test A scientific literacy test was developed based on the OECD framework (OECD, 2016) to evaluate students’ scientific literacy associated with buoyancy before and after the learning activity. The test probes students’ competencies in three dimensions: explain phenomena scientifically, evaluate and design scientific enquiry, and interpret data and evidence scientifically. The purpose of this test is not to evaluate general inquiry competencies but those associated with buoyancy. Therefore, the test involves only seven questions which are closely related to the target concepts. Of the seven questions, two are for the evaluation of the competency of explaining phenomena scientifically (SC-A), two are for the design of scientific enquiry (SC-B), and three are for the interpretation of the data and scientific evidence (SC-C). It should be noted that one question of the SC-B was only presented in the post-test, since this question involves far transfer of the buoyancy concepts and students could not answer it before they learned these concepts. It was hoped that the inclusion of this question in the post-test could help us better understand the impact of the two learning activities. Students’ answers were evaluated by two independent evaluators according to how well their answers satisfied the scientific inquiry principles. If a student’s answer could not explain the cause of a certain science phenomenon, it was scored as 0 points. If a student’s answer could only partially explain the cause, it was scored as 1 point. If a student’s answer was correct and provided complete explanation, it was scored as 2 points. The inter-rater kappa reliability coefficient of the two researchers on the preand post-test were 0.97 and 0.91, indicating that the evaluation was highly reliable. --Conceptions of Learning Science and Approaches to Learning Science Questionnaires One of the purposes of this study is to understand the influence of the light-weight inquiry and traditional instruction on students’ conceptions of learning science and their approach to learning science. The Conceptions of Learning Science (COLS) questionnaire and the Approaches to Learning Science (ALS) questionnaire developed by Lee, Johanson, and Tsai (2008) were thus applied in this study to achieve this goal. The two questionnaires have been widely used to probe junior students’ perceptions of learning science (Chang, et al., 2016) and the questions were closely related to the
context of this study. The COLS consists of 46 questions on a 5-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree) in seven dimensions, including memorizing (8 items), testing (7 items), calculating and practicing (6 items), increase of knowledge (7 items), applying (6 items), understanding (6 items), and seeing in a new way (6 items). These dimensions could reflect students’ conceptions of learning science after the two different instructions. The question items of the COLS questionnaire were slightly modified to meet the context of this study. The overall Cronbach’s alpha value was .92 after modification, and each dimension was at least .81 (ranging from .81 to .92). Regarding the approaches to learning science, the ALS is composed of 24 questions in four dimensions, including deep motivation (8 items), deep strategy (6 items), surface motivation (5 items), and surface strategy (5 items). The question items of the ALS questionnaire were also slightly adapted to fit the context of this study. The overall Cronbach’s alpha value was .85, and each dimension was at least .70, showing that the adapted questionnaire was sufficiently reliable. The two questionnaires were used together to achieve a better understanding of the impact of the light-weight inquiry and traditional instruction. 2.5 Data analysis The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the two learning activities on the students’ knowledge gain, scientific literacy, and their perceptions of learning sciences. Multiple data sources, including the students’ scores on the conceptual learning test, the scientific literacy test, and their perceptions of COLS and ALS obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed to achieve this goal. The conceptual learning test results of the LW and TI groups were analyzed using one-way analysis of covariance (ANVOCA) to understand the impact of the two activities on the learning of buoyancy (RQ1). The ANCOVA, which used the pre-test scores as the covariate, compared the post-test scores of the LW and TI groups to answer RQ1. Furthermore, the scientific literacy test scores of the LW and TI groups were separately analyzed using a paired t test to understand how the students learned in the two different activities. The scientific literacy test scores of the LW group and the TI group were further compared using ANCOVA to understand the impact of the two activities. The analyses were integrated to answer RQ2. Regarding RQ3, the
students’ feedback on the COLS and ALS before and after the activities were also compared using ANCOVA to understand the changes in students’ conceptions of and approaches to science learning after the LW and TI learning activities. 3. Results 3.1 The conceptual learning test The analysis of the conceptual learning pre- and post-test shows that both the LW and TI groups demonstrated significant enhancement. The score of the LW group increased from 3.36 to 5.44 (t=-5.78, p<.05), while the TI group increased from 3.79 to 6.21 (t=-7.47, p<.05), suggesting that both of the instruction approaches enhanced students’ understanding of Buoyancy. However, as shown in Table 1, the ANCOVA analysis indicated that there is no significant difference between the two groups’ enhancement (F=2.58, p>.05). Students in both groups demonstrated similar levels of enhancement of the science knowledge of Buoyancy. Table 1. The results of the conceptual learning test of the LW and TI groups Group
N
Pre-test
Post-test
M
SD
M
SD
TI
24
3.79
1.64
6.21
2.34
LW
25
3.36
1.44
5.44
1.66
F
P
2.58
.115
3.2 Scientific literacy The results of the paired t test for the scientific literacy pre- and post-test of the two groups are displayed in Table 2. The students in the TI group gained significantly higher scores on the SC-B category in the post-test than in the pre-test (t=-3.61, p<.01). Regarding the LW group, the students demonstrated significantly higher overall scores in the post-test than in the pre-test (t=-3.89, p<.01). More specifically, the improvement can be found in the SC-B category (t=-2.00, p<.01) and the SC-C category (t=-2.06, p<.05), and a marginally significant enhancement was found for SC-A (t=-2.00, p=.06). These results indicated that students who participated in the light-weight inquiry activity gained significant enhancement in the scientific literacy test. Further analysis of the two groups with the ANCOVA in Table 3 reveals that the LW group exhibited significantly higher scores on the SC-C category than did the TI group (F=7.34, p<.01). Such results suggest that the light-weight inquiry approach,
compared with the TI approach, is helpful for improving students’ ability in interpreting data and evidence scientifically. Table 2. The paired t test for the scientific literacy tests of the TI and LW groups Groups Dimensions Pre-test Post-test T P M SD M SD TI Overall 1.41 .83 1.51 .79 -.57 .58 (N=24) SC-A .50 .47 .65 .35 -1.32 .20 SC-B .23 .33 .45 .32 -3.61** <.01 SC-C .68 .29 .65 .28 .16 .65 LW (N=25)
Overall SC-A SC-B SC-C * p<.05; ** p<.01
1.28 .38 .20 .62
.79 .39 .38 .22
1.81 .54 .43 .73
.87 .32 .28 .26
-3.89** -2.00 -3.10** -2.06*
<.01 .06 <.01 .05
Table 3. ANCOVA analysis of the scientific literacy tests of the LW and TI groups Scientific Group N Adjusted Std. err. F P Literacy Mean TI 24 1.47 .14 2.38 .13 Overall LW 25 1.85 .14 TI 24 .63 .07 1.29 .26 SC-A LW 25 .55 .07 TI 24 .45 .06 .10 .76 SC-B LW 25 .44 .05 TI 24 .64 .05 7.34** <.01 SC-C LW 25 .74 .05 * p<.05; ** p<.01 3.3 Students’ perceptions of COLS and ALS The students’ feedback on the COLS before and after the activity were analyzed using ANCOVA. Table 4 displays that the TI group perceived a significantly higher level of “memorizing” (F=4.18, p<.05), and a marginally significantly higher level of “calculating and practicing” (F=3.49, p=.07) to learn science than the LW group. However, the LW group perceived a marginally significantly higher level of “seeing in a new way” to learn science than the TI group (F=3.06, p=.09). These results suggest that, compared with the TI approach, the light-weight inquiry approach may contribute to transforming students’ conceptions of learning science from a view of memorizing facts or drill and practice activities to a more advanced view.
Regarding the students’ ALS, the results as shown in Table 5 indicated that the students in the LW group held a significantly higher level of deep motivation (F=4.11, p<.05) and deep strategy (F=9.72, p<.05) than the TI group. Such results reflect that, compared with the traditional instruction, the light-weight inquiry approach not only increased the student’ intrinsic motivation, but also helped them to apply deeper strategies to learn science. Surprisingly, the students in the LW group also perceived a higher level of surface motivation than those in the TI group (F=5.15, p<.05). As surface motivation is related to fear of failure in tests and the orientation to meet external expectations, such results reflect that the students went through the light-weight inquiry activity holding an even higher level of anxiety about their learning performance on tests. This can be shown in their responses to the question: “Even when I have studied hard for a science text, I worry that I may not be able to do well on it.” The LW group exhibited significantly higher levels of anxiety for this question than the TI group did (F=6.38, p<.05). Table 4. ANCOVA analysis of the conception of learning science of the LW and TI groups COLS
Std. err.
F
p
3.23
.09
4.18*
.05
25
2.96
.09
TI
24
3.12
.11
2.46
.12
LW
25
2.89
.10
Calculating and
TI
24
3.46
.10
3.49
.07
practicing
LW
25
3.21
.10
Increase of knowledge
TI
24
3.45
.10
.39
.535
LW
25
3.54
.09
TI
24
3.25
.10
2.52
.119
LW
25
3.48
.10
TI
24
3.53
.10
.39
.534
LW
25
3.62
.10
TI
24
3.40
.10
3.06
.09
LW
25
3.65
.10
Memorizing
Testing
Applying
Understanding
Seeing in a new way
* p<.05
Group
N
Adjusted Mean
TI
24
LW
Table 5. ANCOVA analysis of the approach to learning science of the LW and TI groups ALS Deep motivation
Deep strategy
Surface motivation
Surface strategy
Group
N
Adjusted Mean
Std. err.
F
p
TI
24
2.81
.08
4.11*
.05
LW
25
3.05
.08
TI
24
3.07
.11
9.72**
<.01
LW
25
3.57
.11
TI
24
3.01
.11
5.15*
.03
LW
25
3.36
.11
TI
24
2.86
.11
.33
.567
LW
25
2.77
.10
* p<.05; ** p<.01 4. Discussion and conclusion In 2007, Chan coined two main strands of technology-enhance learning (TEL) research, namely dream-based research and adoption-based research, in his keynote speech at International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education. According to Chan’s definiton, “dream-based research is to explore the potential application of emerging technologies to learning; adoption-based research intends to prove the feasibility of spreading TEL in the real world practice.’ As real classrooms involve complex constraints including time, space, curricular and technological limitations, technologies that work in dream-based research are not necessarily feasible in real classroom practices. Consistent with the notion of the adoption-based research, Dillenbourg’s notion of classroom orchestration addresses the need to understand the best practice that a teacher can adopt to manages multi-layered activities in such a multi-constraints context (Dillenbourg, 2013). In particular, the inquiry-based science teaching is time consuming and complex (Sharples et al., 2015). Although previous studies confirmed the positive effect of computer simulations in certain settings (Chang et al., 2017; Wen et al., 2018), how computer simulations can be positioned in classrooms requires more empirical studies. The contribution of this study relies on it sought to enhance the science learning experience in a regular science classroom under the curricular constraints. The light-weight inquiry activities were implemented to verify whether such an inquiry-based approach can be implemented in the regular curriculum.
This study compared the achievement in the conceptual learning test, scientific literacy test and conceptions of learning science and approaches to learning science of the students who participated in the light-weight inquiry activity and those who learned with traditional instruction. It was found that students in the two conditions demonstrated similar levels of enhancement in the target science knowledge. However, the students in the light-weight inquiry condition displayed significantly higher enhancement in the ability of interpreting data and evidence. Furthermore, the results also support that the students perceived a higher level of deep motivation and strategy but lower levels of memorizing science facts and calculating and practicing when they learned in the light-weight inquiry condition. Research has shown that well-designed inquiry learning with simulation can enhance students’ conceptual understanding of the concepts targeted in the simulation (Chang, 2017; Chiu, DeJaegher, & Chao, 2015; Thacker & Sinatra, 2019). This study also found that the students in the light-weight inquiry condition demonstrated significant enhancement in both the target science concepts and the scientific literacy test. Such a result is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Efstathiou et al., 2018; van Riesen, Gijlers, Anjewierden, & de Jong, 2018), indicating that the use of the computer-based experiment design tool had a positive effect on students’ inquiry skills, while the application of the computer tool can still help students achieve similar learning effects on the target science concepts compared with the traditional approach. Such an impact may be due to the design of the light-weight inquiry approach that enabled students to experience the inquiry process to verify the target science concepts on their own, rather than being taught by the teacher. They went through the data analysis process and drew conclusions to examine the target science concept and thus their scientific literacy was enhanced along with their science knowledge. This study focused on both knowledge gain and scientific literacy, and provides evidence that inquiry with simulation can promote students’ scientific literacy. Specifically, compared to traditional instruction, the light-weight inquiry approach resulted in significantly better improvement in the students’ scientific literacy in the aspect of scientific interpretation of data and evidence. Developing future citizens’ scientific literacy has been an important goal in science education standards
worldwide (NGSS Lead States, 2013; OECD, 2016; Ministry of Education, 2014). Although traditional instruction may also help develop students’ scientific literacy to some extent because proficient scientific literacy requires application of science knowledge (OECE, 2016), an inquiry approach has a unique benefit to student development of scientific literacy that traditional instruction cannot achieve. The light-weight design addresses the challenge that keeps many science teachers from using innovative pedagogical approaches such as inquiry with simulations (Hickey et al., 2012). By keeping the inquiry activities light-weight, teachers are more likely to incorporate inquiry into their teaching. The results of the present study support that the light-weight inquiry approach is helpful for promoting scientific literacy without reducing the learning of science knowledge under the regular science curriculum constraints. Conceptions of learning science involve how individuals construct their understanding or beliefs about learning science, which are built upon their actual learning experiences (Chiou, Liang, & Tsai, 2012; Entwistle & Perterson, 2004). In this study, we found that engaging students in the light-weight inquiry with a computer simulation environment reduced the number of students viewing learning science as memorizing, and has the potential to help students develop higher levels of conceptions, such as seeing and understanding in a new way. Specifically, the study provides evidence that students’ conceptions of learning science as memorizing are likely developed via traditional instruction and can be transformed through inquiry-oriented instruction. Educators may find that the light-weight inquiry activities are helpful for transforming students’ conceptions of learning science in regular curricula and for alleviating the negative impact of the instruction approach aimed at science knowledge gain. Research has found an overall trend in the relationship between individuals’ conceptions of learning and approaches to learning: those who possess lower levels of conceptions of learning tend to adopt surface approaches to learning, whereas those who possess higher levels of conceptions of learning tend to adopt deep approaches (Huang, Liang, & Tsai, 2018; Li, Liang, & Tsai, 2013; Shen, Lee, Tsai, & Chang, 2016). Moreover, a recent study has shown that learners who adopt deep approaches to learning are more likely to have better learning outcomes such as academic performances than those who adopt surface learning approaches (Liang, Chen, Hsu,
Chu, & Tsai, 2018). These studies indicate the important role of learners’ conceptions of and approaches to learning in their learning outcomes. Nevertheless, few studies have focused on designing interventions to help students develop high levels of conceptions of science learning and deep approaches to learning science. In this study, we designed a light-weight inquiry with a computer simulation environment and provided evidence that this environment helped the students develop deep motivations and deep strategies for learning science. 5. Future works The light-weight inquiry approach demonstrated how inquiry can be implemented in regular science classrooms under the curricular constraints. It demonstrated the positive impact on the learning of science knowledge, scientific literacy, and conceptions of learning and approaches to learning science. However, an unexpected effect was also observed, showing that the light-weight inquiry with the computer simulation environment might also trigger surface motivation, reflecting students’ fear of failure in tests and the orientation to meet external expectations. Although research has indicated that it is common that students may develop mixed learning approaches (Wang & Tsai, 2018), such an increase in surface motivation may be attributed to inconsistency between the pedagogical approach and the school-level assessment. In this study, the students still had to participate in the school-level assessment aiming to test
students’ science knowledge level,
although
they learned
with
the
inquiry-oriented instruction. Such an inconsistency increased students’ fear of failure in the school-level assessment as they did not participate in the drill and practice activities as often as they had done before. As this study is only a short-term intervention, future investigations with long-term interventions are needed to discern the reasons behind this phenomenon. Furthermore, the participants of this study were middle school students. Students at different stages may participate in and react to the proposed inquiry activity differently. Whether the elementary school or high school students’ conceptions of learning and approaches to learning will be influenced by the light-weight inquiry activity requires further investigation. Gathering information on these issues through further studies can help to obtain a thorough understanding of this pedagogical innovation and thereafter an inquiry approach can be designed to enhance science learning in a broader context. References
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Acknowledgments This research was partially funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology under contract numbers 106-2511-S-008 -012 -MY3, and 107-2511-H-008 -003 -MY3.
Highlights A light-weight inquiry activity was proposed to enhance the science literacy.
Such an approach improved students’ ability in interpreting data and evidence. Students perceived a higher level of deep motivation and strategy. It transformed a view of memorizing or drill and practice into sophisticated views.
It also triggered a surface motivation (e.g. students’ fear of failure in tests).