Cognitive Pathways: Analysis of Students' Written Texts for Science Understanding

Autor/inn/en	Grimberg, Bruna Irene; Hand, Brian
Titel	Cognitive Pathways: Analysis of Students' Written Texts for Science Understanding
Quelle	In: International Journal of Science Education, 31 (2009) 4, S.503-521 (19 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0950-0693
Schlagwörter	Cognitive Processes; Content Analysis; Grade 7; Middle School Students; Science Education; Science Instruction; Scientific Concepts; Science Laboratories; High Achievement; Low Achievement; Science Achievement; Content Area Writing; Inquiry; Correlation; Constructivism (Learning); Laboratory Experiments; Science Experiments; Models; Heuristics; Thinking Skills + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Inhaltsanalyse; School year 07; 7. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 07; Middle school; Middle schools; Student; Students; Mittelschule; Mittelstufenschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Naturwissenschaftliche Bildung; Teaching of science; Science education; Natural sciences Lessons; Naturwissenschaftlicher Unterricht; Unterdurchschnittliche Leistung; Schriftliche Übung; Korrelation; Laboratory work; Laborarbeit; Analogiemodell; Heuristik; Denkfähigkeit
Abstract	The purpose of this study was to reconstruct writers' reasoning process as reflected in their written texts. The codes resulting from the text analysis were related to cognitive operations, ranging from simple to more sophisticated ones. The sequence of the cognitive operations as the text unfolded represents the writer's cognitive pathway at the time the text was produced. This type of analysis was used to study the impact that three different types of inquiries had on the reasoning process of low-achieving and high-achieving students when performing their laboratory activity using the Science Writing Heuristic. The researchers found that the reasoning pathways for both low-achieving and high-achieving students were similar for each type of inquiry, characterized as being decision-making, descriptive/speculative, and application. The reasoning pathways for the decision-making and application inquiries appear to be more structured than the pathways for the descriptive/speculative activity. The dependence between students' achievement levels and the type of inquiry in relation to specific use of thinking operations was tested using a chi-square analysis, with the results indicating that the reasoning operations performed by the students are independent of their achievement level and dependent on the inquiry type. Higher-order operations were extensively used in the decision-making inquiry and less used in the application activity. Low-order cognitive operations, such as observations and comparisons, were extensively used in the descriptive/speculative inquiry while being less used in the decision-making inquiry activity. (Contains 3 figures and 5 tables.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10