Pixel International Conferences

The goals of science classrooms are to help students become scientifically literate citizens and to encourage greater public understanding in a science-and-technology-infused world. To be scientific literate citizens, especially in the 21^st century era, students need to be able to evaluate evidence and reasoning presented in e-magazine, news, or articles. In addition, students should be able to write their own scientific explanations with appropriate claims and reasoning to articulate and convince others. Especially for science stream students, constructing scientific explanations becomes an essential practice to scientific inquiry. This study investigated high school science students in constructing their scientific inquiry using an open-ended test. The students were provided with the test items containing data about energy flow in different ecosystems, and were asked to write scientific explanations using evidence from the given data to support their explanation with relevant scientific reasoning that they have learned in their biology classroom. There were 72 students, 29 female and 43 male, from two science grade 10 classrooms involved in this study. The finding suggested that students faced difficulties in constructing scientific explanations in two issues. Firstly, the students could not provide appropriate and sufficient evidence to support their claims. Secondly, they did not support their claims with scientific reasoning, but they often used their opinions to support the claims. The results revealed that in order to succeed in enhancing students’ scientific explanation practice, the science classrooms should support students in the use of evidence and reasoning effectively.

Keyword: High School Science, Scientific Explanation, Students’ Difficulties.

References:

[1] National Research Council. “Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards”, Washington, DC: Nation Academy Press, 2000.
[2] Bell, P. & Linn, M. “Scientific arguments as learning artifacts: Designing for learning from the web with KIE”, International Journal of science Education, 2000, 22(8): 797-817.
[3] McNeill, K. L.; & Krajcik. J. S. “Inquiry and scientific explanations: Helping students use evidence and reasoning” , Science as inquiry in the secondary setting, 2008, 121-134.
[4] Ruiz-Primo, M. A., Li, M., Tsai, S. P.& Schnerder, J. “Testing One Premise of Scientific Inquiry in Science Classrooms: A Study that Examines Students’ Scientific Explanations”, Research Report Graduate School of Education and Information Science University of California, Los Angeles, 2008, 1-42
[5] National Research Council. “A framework for k-12 Science Education Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Idea”, Washington, DC: Nation Academy Press, 2008.
[6] Sadler, T.D. “Informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues: A critical review of research”, Journal of Learning Science Teaching, 2004, 41, 513-536.
[7] Kuhn, L. & Reiser, B. “Students Constructing and Defending Evidence-Based Scientific Explanations”, Paper presented at the annual meeting of National Association of Research in Science Teaching, Dallas, Taxas, 2005.
[8] The Institute for the promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST). “The Basic Education Core Curriculum B.E.2551 (A.D.2008) Science”, Bangkok. 2008, 3-4,77.
[9] McNeill, K., Lizotte, D.,J., Krajcik, J., & Marx, R. W. “Supporting students' construction of scientific explanations by fading scafflods in instructional materials”. The Journal of Learning Sciences, 2006, 15(2), 153-191.
[10] McNeill, K. L.; & Krajcik. J. S. “Supporting Grade 5-8 Students in Constructing Explanations in Science: The Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning Framework for Talk and Writing”, New york, NY: Pearson Allyn & Bacon, 2011, 18-42.