High school students’ evaluations, plausibility (re) appraisals, and knowledge about topics in Earth science

Abstract

Evaluation is an important aspect of science and is receiving increasing attention in science education. The present study investigated of the postinstructional knowledge scores were related to participants' evaluations, above and beyond background knowledge, which accounted for 26% of the variance. The activities used in this study may help students develop their critical thinking skills by facilitating evaluation of the validity of explanations based on evidence, a scientific practice that is key to understanding both scientific content and science as a process. However, results from the study were modest and suggest that additional research, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, may be warranted.

The role of interest in climate change instruction

“…Furthermore, our results provide additional evidence that scientific modeling activities can help middle school students learn about climate change. Similar to Lombardi et al (2018), who found that scientific modeling played an important part in adolescents' plausibility appraisals of climate change, the two studies' results suggest that students' participation in mathematical modeling activities can increase their understanding about the causes of climate change and its impacts. Like Lombardi et al (2018), we suspect that this is the case because learning how to critically evaluate and draw conclusions from data helps students understand how researchers conduct climate science.…”

“…The model was fit with full information maximum likelihood estimation and standardized results were requested. To control for teacher effects on student interest development and learning (Logan & Skamp, 2013; Lombardi et al, 2018; Osborne et al, 2003), the final path model included clustered robust standard errors by teacher.…”

“…Lombardi et al (2013) found that a seventh‐grade (ages 12–13) unit with activities linking a model and evidence resulted in increased knowledge about climate change. When a similar unit was enacted with high school students (grades 9–12, ages 14–18), however, knowledge outcomes varied by the teacher (Lombardi et al, 2018). Sellmann and Bogner (2013) reported that a 1‐day field trip increased high school students' (ages 15–19) knowledge about climate change.…”

“…A number of climate change education efforts have used scientific modeling activities in attempts to increase students' understanding of climate change (e.g., Lombardi et al, 2018; Pruneau et al, 2010). To the best of the authors' knowledge, however, none have drawn on real‐world tree and forest data.…”

The Effects of Positive and Negative Emotions on Knowledge Revision

“…Misconceptions about controversial and non-controversial topics are alike in that they both deviate in substantive ways from the normative and best available evidence. At minimum, both require credible and plausible corrections to be revised (Kendeou & van den Broek, 2005;Lombardi, Bickel, Bailey, & Burrell, 2018;Rich, Van Loon, Dunlosky, & Zaragoza, 2017;Van Boekel, Lassonde, O'Brien, & Kendeou, 2017). However, controversial topics are distinguished by the involvement of multiple stakeholders whose incentives, ideas, and prior commitments are in conflict about how to resolve high-stakes issues (Johnson, 2015).…”