The Importance of Being Able to Deal With Variables in Learning Science

Bryant, Peter; Nuñes, Terezinha; Hillier, Judith; Gilroy, C B; Barros, Rossana

doi:10.1007/s10763-013-9469-x

Cited by 12 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Also within similar inquiry-based instructional settings (e.g., within one classroom), students learn to different degrees. These different learning gains on the one hand reflect differences in students' prior content knowledge, but it has also been pointed out that specific domain-general experimentation skills influence students' knowledge development (Bryant, Nunes, Hillier, Gilroy, & Barros, 2015;Chen & Klahr, 1999).…”

Section: Conceptual Change In the Science Classroommentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following this strategy allows making unambiguous causal inferences (Strand-Cary & Klahr, 2008). CVS predicts academic performance and science learning above and beyond general reasoning abilities (Bryant et al, 2015;Wüstenberg, Greiff, & Funke, 2012). Most but not all children typically develop some understanding of the CVS at ages 6-10, depending on task context and the number of variables that have to be controlled (Sodian & Bullock, 2008;Zimmerman, 2007).…”

Section: Experimentation and Learning From Inquirymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An example item is provided in Figure 2. Seven questions dealt with the evaluation or interpretation of experiments, and seven with the creation of experimental designs (Bryant et al, 2015). In the evaluation items, students were asked whether a presented experiment was a good comparison for finding something out.…”

Section: Learning Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The relation of students' understanding of the CVS to their prior content knowledge was positive: Students' understanding of the CVS was a positive predictor for having one of the two more proficient knowledge profiles already at pretest. It is possible that this relation can be explained by students' broader reasoning abilities because these are associated with CVS (Bryant et al, 2015), or by their socioeconomic background. For example, parents' with higher socioeconomic background typically provide more support in students' everyday inquiry activities and critical thinking, which might contribute positively to their understanding of the CVS and also to their content knowledge development (Gleason & Schauble, 1999).…”

Section: The Association Between Cvs and Students' Content Knowledge mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Its effect is often soaked up in the prior knowledge (Rütsche & Schalk, submitted;Schneider, Körkel, & Weinert, 1989), although intelligence can sometimesexplain variation in learning beyond prior knowledge (e.g., Primi, Ferrão, & Almeida, 2010). In addition, CVS has been found to predict science achievement beyond intelligence (Bryant et al, 2015). Furthermore, intelligence can be conceptualized as a network of interacting cognitive abilities (Conway & Kovacs, 2015;Kovacs & Conway, 2016;Van Der Maas et al, 2006).…”

Section: Limitations and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Variable control and conceptual change: A large-scale quantitative study in elementary school

Edelsbrunner

Schalk

Schumacher

et al. 2018

Learning and Individual Differences

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We examined the predictive value and interplay of elementary school students' understanding of the control-of-variables strategy, a domain-general experimentation skill, and their prior content knowledge for subsequent conceptual knowledge acquisition and conceptual change. Trained teachers provided N = 1809 first to sixth graders with 15 lessons of guided inquiry-based instruction on floating and sinking. We assessed understanding of the control-of-variables strategy before instruction, and conceptual content knowledge from before to after instruction. A mixture model analysis, specifically, a latent transition analysis, indicates that understanding of the control-of-variables strategy predicts content knowledge structure before instruction, and content knowledge development from before to after instruction. These findings corroborate lab-based research on the interplay of experimentation skills and content knowledge in inquiry settings and extend it to teacher-guided classroom instruction. We describe how learning pathways vary depending on students' understanding of the control-of-variables strategy and prior content knowledge, and discuss implications for learning and instruction.

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Section: Conceptual Change In the Science Classroommentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Experimentation and Learning From Inquirymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Learning Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Association Between Cvs and Students' Content Knowledge mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Limitations and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Variable control and conceptual change: A large-scale quantitative study in elementary school

Edelsbrunner

Schalk

Schumacher

et al. 2018

Learning and Individual Differences

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Families' experiments and conversations at an open‐ended exhibit in a science museum: Individual characteristics and the influence of minimal guidance strategies

et al. 2021

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Research on the impact of guided investigation, including verbal guidance strategies, has expanded in the recent decade, and the current work contributes to this line of research in a museum context. The current in‐depth study examines the impact of verbal guidance strategies on family learning at an open‐ended museum exhibit, considering participants' individual characteristics. The experiments and conversations of 104 families were observed at an object motion exhibit. Results show that families, with and without guidance, investigated in a meaningful way by performing control‐of‐variables strategy experiments, investigating a range of variables, and formulating hypotheses and causal explanations. However, the results also show that the process of learning scientific concepts could be improved. Minimal interventions of museum educators positively affected the families' learning process by reducing the number of scientifically incorrect remarks. Interestingly, in addition to discussing the phenomenon, especially the families with highly educated parents discussed the topic of reliability of their experiments, which is an under‐investigated aspect of learning through investigation. Only children's cognitive ability and not parental education was modestly, but consistently related to the families' performance.

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Total mercury exposure in early pregnancy has no adverse association with scholastic ability of the offspring particularly if the mother eats fish

Hibbeln

Gregory

Iles-Caven

et al. 2018

Environment International

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There is a public perception that relatively low doses of mercury found in seafood are harmful to the fetal brain but little consistent evidence to support this. In earlier publications we have shown no adverse associations between maternal total blood mercury levels and child behaviour, early development or cognitive function as measured by IQ. However, for IQ the lack of adverse association was conditional upon the mother being a fish eater.In this paper we analyse further data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), this time examining whether prenatal exposure to total mercury is associated with the child's scholastic abilities in reading, spelling, phoneme awareness, mathematics and science; the number of participants with prenatal mercury and relevant test results varied from 1500 to 2200. Multiple regression was used to assess relationships between prenatal total blood mercury concentrations and 16 different test results, after taking account of a variety of potential confounders; in parallel, logistic regression was used to determine associations with the risk of the child being in the lowest 15% of each score. Analyses were repeated stratifying for fish consumption and sex of the child.There was no evidence of harm associated with the level of total mercury, provided the mother ate fish during pregnancy. This was particularly true for tests of mathematics and science. We conclude that women should be confident that eating fish in pregnancy is beneficial for their unborn child.

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The Importance of Being Able to Deal With Variables in Learning Science

Cited by 12 publications

References 13 publications

Variable control and conceptual change: A large-scale quantitative study in elementary school

Variable control and conceptual change: A large-scale quantitative study in elementary school

Families' experiments and conversations at an open‐ended exhibit in a science museum: Individual characteristics and the influence of minimal guidance strategies

Total mercury exposure in early pregnancy has no adverse association with scholastic ability of the offspring particularly if the mother eats fish

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