Here are a few questions to think about while reading this article. You do not have to answer all of them, but do your best to answer a few of them.
1. Are the research questions clearly stated? Is it possible to study the question?
2. Did the author make clear his/ her bias and how it was corrected for?
3. Did the author state clearly who the participants were?
4. Were the implications reasonable, based on the findings?
5. Were the analysis techniques appropriate?
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1) I believe that the research question is clearly stated on the bottom of page 12. Personally I do not think it is something that can be studied. The question is not very clear as to what the author is trying to find out.
ReplyDelete3)The only participants that I could find were the 800 undergrad elementary education students. More participant info in on page 17 and 18. But that is almost half way through this journal...nothing like waiting to get to the method and point!
Overall I felt that this article was very skewed. The author seems to sort of jump around if that makes sense at all...I found it very tricky to keep up with what was being said and even at times how the research was being conducted. I feel that if the author had more subheadings it would have been easier to understand what the author was trying to focus on and talk about.
However, in the discussion there was a quote that these participating students were able to do "science through inquiry, having the same opprotunities as their students will have to develop understanding." In other words, allowing students to explore without some much structure and the teacher is more of a facilitator.
1. Are the research questions clearly stated? Is it possible to study the question?
ReplyDeleteYes, “What type and to what level of sophistication of science content knowledge is a prerequisite to designing inquiry-based science lessons?” This question kind of confuses me, so I am not sure if it is possible to study the question. I think a lot of the words in this question need to be more clear and defined. Like they said in the article, “one of the difficulties in determining the impact of inquiry-based science is having science educators come to a common definition of the term.”
3. Did the author state clearly who the participants were?
The author states that the research was conducted at a medium-sized urban commuter public university in the Midwest. At the university there are over 800 undergraduate elementary education students enrolled in the school of education. The entering ACT score for all non-transfer students in this study was 21. So, yes it gives who the participants were but again, I don’t think it is very clear. I think towards the end it says that data was collected from 234 students…
4. Were the implications reasonable, based on the findings?
Yes? I think they were reasonable because they made a lot of changes to how they teach and how they want the students to learn. Changing how many teachers teach a class and when they team teach and also how they integrate science more completely. On page 21 in the discussion section, it explains how the students who had not completed any of the newly reformed inquiry science classes were not as a group as competent on writing inquiry lessons as the group of the students who had completed one or more inquiry courses. So I think implementing the new courses had a positive outcome based on the findings.
I thought learning about the 5 E Learning Cycle was very interesting. I also think they make a good point in this article that the teachers were having a hard time teaching it because that was not how they were taught. They describe how teachers teach how they are taught, and in another class my teacher said that they are trying to teach the teachers that they should teach how they learned.
Laurin,
ReplyDeleteYou raise a lot of great points. This article did take a long time to get to the point and ask the question. The study is important but I agree that it would be very difficult to conduct the research and make sure the findings are accurate.
Kristen,
This question would be hard to do research for. There would have to be a ton of qualitative and quantative research over several years in my opinnion. I am glad that you took away something from this article. (The five e's) You make a great point about how teachers should teach how they learn and not how they were taught.
Great job guys!
Yes, the reserach question is clearly stated and it is "What type and to what level of sophistication of science content knowledge is a prerequisite to designing inquiry-based science lessons?” This question was worded a little confusing, but i feel that this is something that is possible to be researched.
ReplyDeleteThe researcher in this article used 234 students who had completed their science methods courses at a commuter college in the midwest US. I didn't really understand some of the research regarding the sample tho. The researcher talked about how the science program changed to more inquiry based copurses in 2000, and this is when she started to collect her data. I guess what i dont understand is, was the sample in the old science program, the new science program, or both? I'm assuming both because she compares data between students in each. Maybe i missed it, but i wish she would have been more specific about this.
The major correlation form this study did not surprise me at all. Basically this study showed that students who completed inquiry based methods courses were better able to plan inquiry based lesson. The researcher answers her reserach question by saying "more than disciplinary knowledge is required; inquiry content knowledge is also necessary." I feel that the results of this study kindof stated what we already knew. I would hope that students who have completed 3 inquiry courses would be better at creating inquiry based lessons, as compared to students who have not taken them.
Mark M., Great job with the questions. The article is confusing at parts and I will cover all the questions in my class presentation in two weeks. I liked that you gave it a shot and although it was predictable still read through it.
ReplyDeleteI also feel that question was clearly stated throughout the article, most noticable was in the title of the article itself. The backgroung knowledge and information in the introduction was also very clear and helpful in laying out the basic reason (question) for doing this research.
ReplyDeleteI do feel,however, that it would be a bit difficult to research and study this question completely. Again, the data that was presented in the intro really nailed the need for more skill and knowledge building in the training of elementary science teachers. However, the ultimate goal is to see how well these teachers in training can create a good inquiry lesson; you really can't tell just how good a lesson is unless you observe it being taught and then do assessment to see how the learning of the students was affected. I guess what I am saying is the you can write a beautiful looking, well organized lesson with all the proper questions written out neatly in 'inquiry' form with 'higher order thinking skills' all layed out and assigned to each question and possible responses but that does not mean that the lesson will be delivered well or that the students present learned more than another method.
One of my main issues with the methods course I took was that there was WAY too much time spent practicing writing a 'good' lesson plan that had all of the right parts in the right order and relatively very little time actually teaching them to students. To me that is the ONLY way to find out if a lesson truly is as good as it looks.
While I do agree that 'doing and then lecturing' can be more effective in science instruction there was no research done to truly follow up on the really meaningful results...the students themselves.
I am really galad that you mentioned the question coming up in the title since in the article it takes that researcher a long time to state the exact question. I also like how you mentioned a very well written and pretty lesson plane that took hours to plan and write up means nothing unless the students learn from it. But that is more content oriented so careful not to feed off of this point. I also agree with you that the research would be very work intensive in the observation and assessment department.
ReplyDeleteThe research question is clearly stated at the bottom of page 2. It is a very wordy question but seems like it could be researchable. It seems to be looking more at how well the teacher knows the content rather than how they are teaching the lessons.
ReplyDeleteThe author did clearly state who the participants were and I like that there was a variety of ages and a number of participants. I feel like this would help to create for more valid data in research like this.
The one thing I liked about the article was using the 5 E’s. It really looks like it would help out in a science classroom. The other thing was that they left themselves open to start more research with more questions. This seems like it was a reasonable article and a worthwhile study.
The research question was definitely cleary stated and easy to find, but it took me a couple of times to read it over to actually understand what the question was asking...I think like Mark said, it was too wordy. I'm not sure if it would be the greatest research question and that's not a good thing if you're starting off your article by confusing people with your research question.
ReplyDeleteThe participants were clearly stated- medium sized public university, 800 undergraduate elementary education students.
Maybe it's just me because I'm not great with science, but there was a lot of wording in the article that was really confusing and I wasn't sure what they were talking about. Unless I missed it, maybe the author should have done a section with vocab, to help readers understand better.
Mark and Meg, I agree with the both of you that the research question needs to be trimed down so that it is more understandable. Mark, I like that you pointed out that the study was done on the teachers. I also like that you see this research question and data could help creat many more research questions and other studies. Nice job!
ReplyDelete1. After reading the article I believe that the research question was clearly stated. I do agree that the question was not direct in stating the problem. I feel that the question should be very clear to the reader.
ReplyDelete3. The author did clearly state who the participants were. They were 800 undergraduate elementary education students from a public university.
This article states what most of us know that inquiry learning is the very beneficial to students especially in science. I feel this is a very good article to prove that, although at times it was confusing and a little wordy.
1. I think that the research question was clearly stated. As Josh said, it was stated in the title of the article. It was not really stated clearly again in the article until page 20, when the researchers specifically said, "our research question..." Other than that, they discussed their hypothesis for their study. I think the the question was a little wordy. Others have already mentioned this, but I agree. I had to read it a few times to decipher its meaning and figure out in more "plain" terms what they were trying to get at. I think this is something that can be researched, but the terms and conditions need to be more clearly defined regarding the question.
ReplyDelete3. I actually thought the author was fairly clear about the participants in this study. This is one of the few studies we have read so far that has a larger sample size. The author described the students compared to a national average, which gives us an idea of their academics compared to other college students. They gave some good background data about the sample size.
4/5. I think there were some gaps in this study that made it hard to understand and follow. I think this is a researchable topic, but it has to be more defined and less broad. I think the research methods were not the most effective because at the end of the study the researchers had to account for many outside factors that could have affected the students performance on the test they used for data (e.g. anxiety and lacking self confidence).
1.Are the research questions clearly stated? Is it possible to study the question?
ReplyDeleteYes, the research question is clearly stated (however I think it was pretty far into the reading that the question was presented) It is, “what type and to what level of sophistication of science content knowledge is a prerequisite to designing inquiry based science lessons?” (20). After reading the article, I think that this question needs some work. After all we have learned about designing our research questions, I think that the researchers need to define some of the terminology that is in the question and kind of simplify it perhaps. I also think that the data and results portion of the article doesn’t really answer the question.
3.Did the author state clearly who the participants were?
234 students from a medium sized urban commuter public university in Michigan, in the elementary education program who completed the elementary science methods course between 2000 and 2003. The age of the participants ranged from 21-55, the mean age being at approximately 28 years old. Over half of the sample population was non-traditional students. 89% of the sample was identified as white, non Hispanic, and 92% were female.
5.Were the analysis techniques appropriate?
Although the researchers did state and explain the method or analysis techniques, I found it difficult to follow at times, especially when they were talking about the MEAP scores. As I understood the article, I think that the primary analysis was done by using these test scores. In addition, I also think the other way of collecting data was through the midterm assessment that the students completed. I find this question to be quite interesting because in the article itself there is a good amount of information stating the limitations on the data collection. For example, in the discussion part of the study, the researchers state “this unknown variable might be a more complex factor such as pedagogical content knowledge or the anxiety produced because lesson plan was created during an exam. One way to determine if the test setting had an impact on the lesson plan would be to evaluate the unit lesson plans that the students create at the end of the semester “ I happen to think that this part of the article answers this question (question 5). In an action research study it is important to describe limitations and I happen to think that this is a big one (the fact that the results were based on a test)—(we all know that there are many issues with testing: anxiety, not everyone does great on tests, personal issues, etc.)
1) the question is clearly stated, however it is stated too far into the reading as almost everyone has said. It was difficult for me to keep my interest in looking for it. I believe that the question is stated on page 10. I do not feel that the question is a strong question. It seems rather vague and difficult to measure as you do not truly know science backgrounds, and there are other variables easily thrown into the equation.
ReplyDelete3) The author I felt was not completely clear on who the participants were. There was mention of the 800 undergrad students at the school and then their was mention of 234 students who completed the science methodology classes. I am assuming the this is the sample that they are taking from? Not sure though.
I feel after reading the discussion that the author clearly understands that there are truly other variables that could contribute to the data collected.
I completely didn’t see the research question at first but when I took a second look I did find it. I agree with Meg and others that it was too wordy (that’s why I didn’t catch it the first time). It does seem researchable but it would probably be too time intensive to really be worth studying since the results are something we, as teachers, already know (or would assume).
ReplyDeleteIt seems as though the second question is being skipped. I maybe wrong but it appeared to me that the author of this article already completely agreed with having inquiry based methods as a better way to engage students and to encourage better acquisition of the material. I’m probably being dense but I did not see how she corrected this if at all.
The participants seemed to be the 800 undergraduate students and/or the 234 science methods students from the commuter college. I agree with Mark M. that this part was confusing. I didn’t know whether the author of the study was always referring to both sets of students or not.
Overall, I agree with Laurin when she says that the article jumps around a lot. I’m not sure the author meant it to be that way or not but it was hard for me to follow in some spots then piece it all together in my mind. The study proved a good point though and it was interesting to read. It’s good to have the evidence to prove an assumption you have so there is something to back you up when you insist on having the “correct” or “more effective” teaching method/learning style.
1. Are the research questions clearly stated? Is it possible to study the question?
ReplyDeleteThe research questions in this article is “What type and to what level of sophistication of science content knowledge is a prerequisite to designing inquiry-based science lessons?” (Luera, Moyer & Everett 2005) I believe that the author provides supporting information on page 17 as well by stating their hypothesis on the proposed study. “We propose that science content knowledge will have an effect on the ability to design an inquiry-based science lesson.”
3. Did the author state clearly who the participants were?
The authors are not very clear about the participants in this study. They state that research was conducted at a medium sized urban public university in the Midwest that has over 800 undergraduate elementary education students enrolled. However, they do not in the study actually say that all of 800 students are active participants in the study. So, I know there are 800 students in the school, but do not know the actual number of participants.
This article to me was very confusing. Not only did the authors jump around in the article, but also used a lot of vocabulary that I was not familiar with. I had a hard time getting the full jist of what was really going on in this article and what the authors were actually looking for. I felt that they used numerous forms of assessment and evaluation used, however didn’t feel any of them really tied the whole study together.
It is very clear that everyone thought the research question was to wordy. The question was hidden deep inside the article but is seems that everyone found it. There was also confusion with who the actually participants of the study were. I will make sute to make it all clear in my class presentation.
ReplyDelete