The Contributions Of Science Teaching Outside The Classroom To Students’ Knowledge Development

Author(s):

Rikke Hartmeyer(presenting / submitting)Peter Bentsen Mads Bølling

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

14 SES 08 B, Place-Based and Place-Conscious Education I

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-10

09:00-10:30

Room:

109.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Linda Mary Hargreaves

Contribution

Introduction

Teaching science outside school

An emergent theme within the science education literature highlights a contradiction between students’ attitudes towards science in general and their specific attitudes towards school science. Research shows that attitudes towards science itself are often regarded as positive; however, attitudes towards school science are often negative (e.g. Osborne, Simon & Collins, 2003). Specifically, Quigley (2014) argued that while students’ interest in school science is waning, their interest in science during informal experiences is intensifying. One possible explanation is that school science is seen as lacking relevance, decontextualised (Osborne, Simon & Collins, 2003), tedious, or out-dated (Quigley, 2014). In comparison to classroom-based science teaching, out-of-school science experiences are often perceived as engaging, challenging and relevant (Braund & Reiss, 2007). Consequently, moving science teaching outside school as a supplement to classroom-based teaching may be a way to enhance learning and interest among students.

Students’ cognitive achievement and knowledge acquisition

Studies investigating students’ learning (Bamberger & Tal, 2008), cognitive achievement (Sturm & Bogner, 2010), retention of knowledge (Randler, Kummer & Wilhelm, 2012), and knowledge acquisition (Carrier, Thomson, Tugurian & Stevenson, 2014) in science teaching outside school seems to highlight the benefits of including out-of-school contexts. However, few studies have explored the characteristics of knowledge acquired by students taught science outside school as studies have primarily focused on growth in knowledge or cognitive achievement.

Forms of knowledge

In defining what we mean by forms of knowledge, we refer to the revisions of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Anderson et al., 2001). In this taxonomy, four knowledge dimensions are described which are factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge. These dimensions are further divided into subcategories specifying each dimension ranging from very specific knowledge to more abstract forms of knowledge. These various forms of knowledge are highlighted as important for different cognitive processes and tasks in science (Mayer, 2002; Pintrich, 2002). For example, procedural knowledge is essential knowledge when students apply procedures to perform exercises or solve problems (Mayer, 2002), whereas metacognitive knowledge are assigned useful for students to appropriately adapt the ways in which they think and operate (Pintrich, 2002). Teaching outside schools often contains elements of ‘hands-on’ approaches (Rickinson, Dillon, Teamey, Morris, Choi, Sanders, & Benefield, 2004) which might support the development of procedural knowledge, as this form of knowledge is defined as knowledge of ‘how to do something’ – that is methods of inquiry, criteria for using skills, algorithms, techniques, and methods (Krathwohl, 2002). As such, it is important that science teaching support students in acquiring different forms of knowledge to be competent in science.

Research aim

Therefore, we explore the forms of knowledge and extensions in knowledge acquired by students taught science in different teaching contexts and pedagogical environments at school and outside school. Hence, the aims are to explore 1) the forms of knowledge acquired by students taught curriculum-based natural science and technology at school and outside school in a science-specific topic and 2) the extensions (the degrees and the ranges) in knowledge acquired by students at school in teaching outside school.

Method

To gain insights into the forms of students’ science knowledge and explore how knowledge acquired at school is extended in teaching outside school, we applied the qualitative research method Personal Meaning Mapping (Falk, 2003) at two Danish public schools. Data was collected in continuation of Natural Science and Technology (NST) teaching in what could be characterised as different teaching contexts in and outside of school. Firstly, data collection was done in continuation of NST lessons at school and secondly in continuation of lessons conducted outside of school at either: The Experimentarium (a science centre in the area of Copenhagen) or in a green urban community area in a suburb of Copenhagen. The participants were 6th grade students selected from four classes. The schools were strategic chosen based on their location in areas primarily composed of families with either high or low socio-economic background. The selection of students was based on maximum variation (Flyvbjerg, 2006) concerning socioeconomic background and teacher expectations on students’ outcomes. In all cases, six students from each class were asked to develop maps shortly after the end of the lessons. They were handed a piece of paper with words in the middle which were central to the topic of the teaching lessons conducted and of the future lessons outside school. The words were: Energy and Electricity, Bridges and Construction, and Water Cycle. Based on the teaching conducted, the students were asked to write anything they had learned about the topic. Then each student was interviewed. The interviews followed partially a predefined interview guide inspired by the framework by Anderson et al. (2001). The maps were collected and kept by the researcher. In continuation of the lessons outside school, the students were given their maps back and asked to make additions and changes with a colored pen. Finally, a second interview lasting about 20 minutes was conducted following the same procedure as the first interview. In the analysis of data we applied a qualitative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) and focused on science specific-content screening for forms of knowledge.The analysis was theory driven as we applied the revisions of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Anderson et al., 2001) to structure, label and define the data in the coding process using a direct approach (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). In the analysis of the data, the knowledge dimensions from the revised taxonomy were applied.

Expected Outcomes

In this explorative study, we mainly identified factual knowledge and partially conceptual knowledge among 6th grade students taught Science and Technology outside school as an integral part of teaching a science specific topic at school. Additionally, we showed that knowledge acquired outside school was most often ascribed to the general topic and not to pre-existing knowledge. Therefore, we argue that students primarily acquired factual knowledge regardless of teaching environment and that extension in pre-existing knowledge was sparse. Furthermore, we stress that specific forms of knowledge was not found to be linked to specific teaching contexts and that knowledge identified is not cumulative in the sense that knowledge acquired at school is further extended in lessons outside school. As such, the practical implications of our research might concern more focus by teachers on integrating pre-existing content specific knowledge systematically in science teaching to extend this knowledge in students. Furthermore, the study seems to highlight the need for teaching methods supporting the acquirement of conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge and metacognitive knowledge.

References

Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., Airasian, P. W.,Cruikshank, K. A., Mayer, R. E., Pintrich, P. R., Raths, J. & Wittrock, M. C. (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing. A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Bamberger, Y. & Tal, T. (2008). Multiple Outcomes of Class Visits to Natural History Museums: The Students’ View. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 17, 274-284 Braund, M. & Reiss, M. (2007). Towards a More Authentic Science Curriculum: The contribution of out‐of‐school learning. International Journal of Science Education, 28 (12), 1373-1388. Carrier, S. J. Thomson, M. M., Tugurian, L. P. & Stevenson, K.T. (2014). Elementary Science Education in Classrooms and Outdoors: Stakeholder views, gender, ethnicity, and testing. International Journal of Science Education, 36 (13), 2195-2220. Falk, J.H. (2003). Personal Meaning Mapping. In: G. Caban, C. Scott, J. Falk & L. Dierking, (Eds.) Museums and Creativity: A study into the role of museums in design education, pp. 10-18. Sydney, AU: Powerhouse Publishing. Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Five Misunderstandings about Case-Study Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12 (2), 219-245. Hsieh, H-F & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15 (9), 1277-1288. Kratwohl, D. R. (2002). A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview. Theory into Practice, 41 (4), 212-218. Mayer, R. E. (2002). Rote versus meaningful learning. Theory into Practice, 41 (4), 226-232. Osborne, J., Simon, S. & Collins, S. (2003). Attitudes towards science: a review of the literature and its implications. International journal of science education, 25 (9), 1049-1079. Pintrich, P. R. (2002).The Role of Metacognitive Knowledge in Learning, Teaching, and Assessing. Theory Into Practice, 41 (4), 219-225. Randler, C. , Kummer, B & Wilhelm, C. (2012) . Adolescent Learning in the Zoo: Embedding a Non-Formal Learning Environment to Teach Formal Aspects of Vertebrate Biology. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 21, 384-391. Rickinson, M., Dillon, J., Teamey, K., Morris, M., Choi, M. Sanders, K., & Benefield, P. (2004). A Review of Research on Outdoor Learning. London: National Foundation for Educational Research and King’s College London. Retrieved from http://www.field-studies-council.org/documents/general/NFER/A_review_of_research_on_outdoor_learning .pdf . Sturm, H. & Bogner, F. X. (2010). Learning at workstations in two different environments: A museum and a classroom. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 36, 14-19. Quigley, C. (2014). Expanding our view of authentic learning: bridging in and out-of-school experiences. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 9 (1), 115-122.

Author Information

Rikke Hartmeyer (presenting / submitting)

Aarhus University

Department of Education

Copenhagen

Peter Bentsen

Steno Diabetes A/S

Health Promotion Reserach

Gentofte

Mads Bølling

Copenhagen University, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, Denmark

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