Assessing students' systems reasoning in ecology

Abstract

In this study, several assessment rubrics were used to analyse students' systems reasoning about food web perturbations and pollutant effects within ecosystems. An analytic paper/pencil task and a constructive interview task prompted the reasoning of two classes of 11 year old students (n = 52), before and after they participated in a month-long, hands-on unit in which they constructed, observed, and manipulated mini-ecosystems. When analysing population dynamics in response to perturbations within a food web students used predominately one-way linear, rather than more sophisticated two-way and cyclic reasoning, both before and after the instructional unit. They thus had limited models of patterns of relationships and reciprocal effects in ecosystems. When tracing how three different pollutants travel through and affect an ecosystem, 10 out of 16 focal students noted only effects that occur when pollutants come into direct contact with organisms, rather than indirect impacts on organisms. These results point to limitations in awareness of patterns of systems interactions, and naive or missing domain-specific knowledge, as constraining students' systems reasoning in ecology.

An Investigation of the Potential of Interactive Simulations for Developing System Thinking Skills in Elementary School: A case study with fifth‐graders and sixth‐graders

“…Similar approaches of content analysing, coding and classifying responses to tasks within an environmental context, are considered common in ecological education literature (Grotzer & Bell Basca, 2003;Hogan, 2000;Korfiatis et al, 2004) …”

“…Specifically, the idea that one change can produce a short term effect which can equilibrate over time or which can then feedback to influence the change that produced it involved reasoning skills that seemed to complex for the children. The repeatedly reported failures to improve this type of skill with children of this age (Grotzer & Bell Basca, 2003;Hogan, 2000;Sheehy et al, 2000), should make us consider the possibility of cognitive development barriers that have to be researched more thoroughly in establishing the objectives of future learning strategies. In educational design studies, the identification of difficulties encountered by students during the process of learning is an important finding since it provides useful input to curriculum developers and also indicates the need to search for underlying causes.…”

Determination of secondary school students cognitive structure, and misconception in ecological concepts through word association test

“…they believe that living organisms in the ecosystem can affect each other only if they have relation in food chain. Besides, most of high and secondary school students are not aware of the flow of energy among living organisms and they cannot comprehend the proper energy flow in the food chain (Griffiths and Grant, 1985;Hogan, 2000;Özkan et al, 2004;Yörek et al, 2010).…”

“…In this study, when sentences were inspected it was observed that students did not notice food chain is formed by producers, consumers, decomposers and a flow of energy that starts from the sun. Also, Griffiths and Grant (1985), Hogan (2000), Özkan et al (2004) and Yörek et al (2010) determined that students could not comprehend that energy follows in the food chain.…”

Determining the Middle School 7th Grade Students’ Levels of Understanding the Concept of Ecosystem via Worksheets

“…Örneğin ekosistemlerin biyotik ve abiyotik öğeleri arasında hiç ilişki olmadığını (Adeneyi, 1985) veya tek yönlü bir ilişki olduğunu (Eilam, 2012;Sander vd., 2006) düşünmektedirler. Hogan (2000)'ın çalışmasında da 11 yaş grubu öğrencilerinin besin ağındaki düzensizliklerle ilgili verdikleri yanıtların, daha karmaşık iki yönlü ve döngüsel ilişkilerden çok, tekyönlü ve doğrusal olduğu saptanmıştır. Bazı çalışmalarda ise öğrencilerin ekosistemde yer alan canlılar arasındaki enerji akışının farkında olmadıkları ve besin zincirindeki doğru enerji akışını kavrayamadıkları (Arkwringht,2014;Griffiths ve Grant, 1985;Hogan, 2000;Özkan vd., 2004;Yörek, vd., 2010) görülmektedir.…”