Relationships among informal learning environments, teaching procedures and scientific reasoning ability

Attracting Youth to Agriculture: The Career Interests of Young Farmers Club Members in Uganda

“…Therefore, could YFCs in Uganda and elsewhere be used to augment students' learning scientific laws, concepts, and principles given that agricultural practices involve numerous real-world applications of the life and physical sciences? Other researchers (Duncan, Ricketts, & Shultz, 2011;Edwards et al, 2003;Gerber et al, 2001;Ramsey & Edwards, 2004) have asserted that benefit. Additional studies should explore these questions.…”

“…This may provide more meaningful insight on childhood experiences as a factor influencing individuals' career aspirations, especially those supporting students' interests in pursuing agricultural careers. Researchers should also examine teachers' attitudes and perceptions regarding the use of club activities to facilitate the teaching and learning process, including the impact these activities have on students' learning and achievement in science (Gerber et al, 2001) and in agriculture (Edwards, Leising, & Parr, 2003). Further, a need exists to conduct more research on why students had less interest in careers related to agricultural extension, agriculture (i.e., farming), food processing, and animal breeder.…”

Contributions of Academic Language, Perspective Taking, and Complex Reasoning to Deep Reading Comprehension

“…Studies in science education found that students struggle with several aspects of reasoning and argumentation, such as finding adequate evidence to support a claim, integrating contradictory evidence, and challenging the claims made by others (Bell, 2004;Cavagnetto, Hand, & Norton-Meier, 2010;Evagorou, Jimenez-Aleixandre, & Osborne, 2012;Jimenez-Aleixandre & Pereiro-Munoz, 2002;Sandoval & Millwood, 2005). However, children's scientific reasoning can be effectively promoted by specific classroom practices, such as inquiry-based instruction (e.g., Gerber, Cavallo, & Marek, 2001) and implementation of classroom strategies for teaching argumentation (Osborne, Erduran, & Simon, 2004). Although it seems obvious that students need reasoning skills to navigate texts reporting complex relationships or phenomena (for example, in history, science, or literature), such as those frequently encountered in the middle grades and higher, there has been little research examining the relationship between reasoning and reading comprehension.…”

Examination of Learning Equity among Prospective Science Teachers Who are Concrete, Formal and Postformal Reasoners after an Argumentation-Based Inquiry Course

“…In addition, concrete reasoners' scientific reasoning gains were higher than those of formal and postformal reasoners with medium and large effect sizes respectively. Although previous research has shown that it is possible to enhance student scientific reasoning (e.g., Gerber, Cavallo, & Marek, 2001;Johnson & Lawson, 1998;Lawson et al, 2007;Maruśić & Sliśko, 2012) and achieve equity among different scientific reasoners in inquiry classes (Jensen & Lawson, 2011), little was known about whether scientific reasoning gaps between prospective science teachers who are concrete, formal, and postformal reasoners can be lessened in inquiry classroom settings. More specifically, studies showed that students enhanced their scientific reasoning in learning environments in which they were fostered to construct evidence-based explanations (Lawson et al, 2007;Maruśić & Sliśko, 2012).…”