Collaborative Research: Examining the Development of Student Reasoning Skills Through Scaffolded Physics Instruction

合作研究：通过支架式物理教学检验学生推理能力的发展

• 批准号: 1431541
• 负责人: Beth Lindsey
• 金额: $ 5.32万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1431541&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Examining; Development; Student

This is a collaborative project involving North Dakota State University (Award DUE-1431857), the University of Maine (Award DUE-1431940), Penn State Greater Allegheny (Award DUE-1431541), the University of Washington (Award DUE-1432765), and Western Washington University (Award DUE-1432052).In addition to helping students learn foundational physics content, one of the most important goals of a college-level physics course is to help students learn how to reason. To be successful in STEM fields, students must be able to build multi-step explanations leading to a prediction, an inference, or a conclusion. Experienced physics instructors recognize that this is difficult for many students. Although a great deal of research has been conducted on how students develop an understanding of individual concepts in physics, there has been little research to date on how students learn to chain ideas together. In many cases, instructional interventions have been shown to help the strongest students most, thereby widening the gap between high- and low-achieving students. Differences in students' underlying reasoning abilities might account for this disparity of impact. The outcomes of this project have the potential both to decrease such gaps and to increase the retention of at-risk students in STEM disciplines. Because this is a new avenue of research, one of the primary goals of this project is to develop tools and methods for the reliable measurement of student reasoning, and to test these tools with diverse student populations. These tools will be shared with other researchers so that they can be applied more widely in studies of the development of students' reasoning abilities in STEM courses.Despite a sustained focus on reasoning and problem solving from a variety of research perspectives, little is known about how students construct inferential reasoning chains in solving qualitative physics problems. Because of the importance of reasoning in developing and applying scientific knowledge, as well as the relative lack of empirical and theoretical resources for understanding and assessing the development of such reasoning, there is a need for more research in this area. Central to this exploratory project is the development of new instruments and methodologies for disentangling conceptual understanding of physics from the reasoning abilities required to apply that understanding productively. Specific objectives of the project are (1) to develop instruments capable of reliably measuring student reasoning and (2) to use those instruments to investigate the development of student reasoning in university physics courses. The investigators will concurrently pursue both the development and refinement of instruments and the generation of new knowledge about students' reasoning in physics, including the identification of factors and instructional circumstances that enhance or suppress the application of productive reasoning approaches. The investigators will employ three complementary strategies: (1) the collection and analysis of snapshot data obtained from many students at a single instant (e.g., written responses to exam questions), (2) controlled experiments involving comparisons of snapshot data obtained under different circumstances, and (3) the collection and analysis of video data from student interviews and from groups of students working through materials in class.

This is a collaborative project involving North Dakota State University (Award DUE-1431857), the University of Maine (Award DUE-1431940), Penn State Greater Allegheny (Award DUE-1431541), the University of Washington (Award DUE-1432765), and Western Washington University (Award DUE-1432052).In addition to helping students learn foundational physics content, one of the most important goals of a大学级物理课程是为了帮助学生学习如何推理。为了在STEM领域取得成功，学生必须能够构建多步骤的解释，从而导致预测，推论或结论。经验丰富的物理讲师认识到，对于许多学生来说，这很困难。尽管已经对学生如何发展物理学的个人概念进行了大量研究，但迄今为止，关于学生如何学习将思想融合在一起的研究很少。在许多情况下，已经证明了教学干预措施可以帮助最强大的学生，从而扩大了高分和低位学生之间的差距。学生基本推理能力的差异可能会造成这种影响的差异。该项目的结果既有可能减少此类差距，又有可能增加在STEM学科中的高危学生的保留。因为这是研究的新途径，所以该项目的主要目标之一是开发可靠测量学生推理的工具和方法，并测试这些工具的学生人数不同。这些工具将与其他研究人员共享，以便可以更广泛地将它们应用于STEM课程中学生推理能力的发展。尽管从各种研究的角度来看，持续着眼于推理和解决问题，但对学生如何在解决定性物理问题方面构建推论链的知识知之甚少。由于推理在发展和运用科学知识方面的重要性，以及相对缺乏理解和评估这种推理发展的经验和理论资源，因此在这一领域需要进行更多的研究。这个探索性项目的核心是开发新工具和方法，以使对物理学的概念理解与有效地应用该理解所需的推理能力相关。该项目的具体目标是（1）开发能够可靠衡量学生推理的工具，以及（2）使用这些工具来研究大学物理学课程中学生推理的发展。调查人员将同时追求工具的发展和完善，以及有关学生在物理学推理的新知识的产生，包括确定因素和教学环境，以增强或抑制生产推理方法的应用。研究人员将采用三种互补策略：（1）收集和分析从单个瞬间获得的许多学生获得的快照数据（例如，对考试问题的书面回答），（2）涉及在不同情况下获得的快照数据的比较，以及（3）从学生访谈中收集和通过材料的材料中的学生进行视频数据收集和分析。

项目成果

Leveraging understanding of energy from physics to overcome unproductive intuitions in chemistry

利用物理学对能量的理解来克服化学中无效的直觉

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevphyseducres.15.010120
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Physical Review Physics Education Research
• 影响因子: 3.1
• 作者: Lindsey, Beth A.;Nagel, Megan L.;Savani, Brandi N.
• 通讯作者: Savani, Brandi N.

Exploring and supporting student reasoning in physics by leveraging dual-process theories of reasoning and decision making

利用推理和决策的双过程理论探索和支持学生的物理推理

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevphyseducres.17.020137
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Physical Review Physics Education Research
• 影响因子: 3.1
• 作者: Speirs, J. Caleb;Stetzer, MacKenzie R.;Lindsey, Beth A.;Kryjevskaia, Mila
• 通讯作者: Kryjevskaia, Mila

Investigating student ability to follow reasoning chains: The role of conceptual understanding

调查学生遵循推理链的能力：概念理解的作用

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevphyseducres.19.010128
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Physical Review Physics Education Research
• 影响因子: 3.1
• 作者: Lindsey, Beth A.;Stetzer, MacKenzie R.;Speirs, J. Caleb;Ferm, William N.;van Hulten, Alexander
• 通讯作者: van Hulten, Alexander

How curriculum developers’ cognitive theories influence curriculum development

课程开发者认知理论如何影响课程开发

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevphyseducres.16.020144
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Physical Review Physics Education Research
• 影响因子: 3.1
• 作者: Boudreaux, Andrew;Elby, Andy
• 通讯作者: Elby, Andy

Designing research-based instructional materials that leverage dual-process theories of reasoning: Insights from testing one specific, theory-driven intervention

设计基于研究的教学材料，利用双过程推理理论：测试一种特定的、理论驱动的干预措施的见解

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevphyseducres.16.020140
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Physical Review Physics Education Research
• 影响因子: 3.1
• 作者: Kryjevskaia, Mila;Stetzer, MacKenzie R.;Lindsey, Beth A.;McInerny, Alistair;Heron, Paula R. L.;Boudreaux, Andrew
• 通讯作者: Boudreaux, Andrew