Combining expert K-maps with cued recall to improve students’ conceptions of learning science: a quasi-experimental study

Digital technology has been proposed as a pedagogical tool capable of transforming traditional inquiry-based learning methods into innovative inquiry-based learning environments for school science. Researchers have reported that technology-enhanced learning environments have significant potential to shape students’ conceptions of learning and their learning approaches. This study, therefore, introduces a technology-infused active inquiry learning approach aimed at transforming primary school students’ conceptions of learning science. 11 fifth-grade students from a university-based primary school in the northeastern region of Thailand were selected to participate in a two-week intervention based on this approach. The results indicate a noticeable shift in the students’ conceptions of technology-infused active inquiry learning following the intervention. However, it was observed that many students still exhibited a tendency towards passive learning due to the overall interaction with technology during science lessons. This highlights the ongoing challenge of effectively incorporating technology in the classroom to foster more advanced conceptions of learning.

Previous research has established a close link between students' conceptions of learning and approaches to learning. Until recently, only a few quantitative studies have investigated the relationship between high school students' conceptions of learning science and the approaches they adopt to learning science. This study sought to address this gap in the literature by assessing these possible relationships empirically through the development of two questionnaires: The Conceptions of Learning Science (COLS) questionnaire and the Approaches to Learning Science (ALS) questionnaire. Four hundred and seventy‐four Taiwanese high school students were administered the COLS questionnaire and the ALS questionnaire. Results were entered into a structural equation model to elicit structural relations between students' conceptions of and their approaches to learning science. Overall, findings revealed that students holding constructivist conceptions of learning science tended to employ deep approaches to learning science. Conceptions of learning science such as “testing” and “calculate and practice” were also found to have effects on the surface approaches to learning science; the conceptions of learning science as “applying” and “understanding and seeing in a new way” had noticeable effects on deep approaches to learning science. This study employed quantitative methods to confirm further the structural relations existing between conceptions of learning science and the motives and strategies employed in learning science. Implications for implementing the study's findings into the context of the real‐world classroom are discussed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed, 92:191–220, 2008.

Background:The conceptions of learning have a deep effect on the learning process, and accordingly on learning outcomes. Some researchers emphasize that conceptions of learning are domain-dependent and there should be more research in different domains (e.g. science, literature) to enhance students’ understanding of conceptions of learning science.Purpose:The purpose of this research was to examine and compare science-major and literature-major students’ conceptions of learning science (COLS). Also, gender differences in COLS were examined for two majors.Sample:The sample for this study comprised of 503 high school students in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades (244 females, 259 males) in a district of Karaman in Turkey.Design and methods:The questionnaire, the Conceptions of Learning Science (COLS), developed by Lee, Johanson, and Tsai, was used to identify students’ COLS. The data obtained via the questionnaire were analyzed by means of SPSS 15.0 statistical software. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the factor structure of the questionnaire. Then, two-way MANOVA was conducted to compare the mean scores regarding the students’ majors and genders in terms of the factors of COLS.Results:The results of the study revealed that students in Science-Mathematics field tended to express more agreement with lower-level COLS, such as learning science by ‘memorizing,’ ‘preparing for exams,’ and ‘increasing one’s knowledge’ than those in Literature-Mathematics field. Second, more female students conceptualized learning science as ‘increasing one’s knowledge,’ ‘applying,’ ‘understanding,’ or ‘seeing in a new way’ than male students in both majors. Third, the findings of two-way MANOVA, in general, revealed that there were significant differences in the average scores of conceptions of ‘memorizing,’ ‘calculating and practicing,’ and ‘increasing one’s knowledge’ between two majors. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant mean difference between male and female students with respect to ‘memorizing,’ ‘preparing for exams,’ ‘calculating and practicing,’ ‘applying,’ ‘understanding,’ and ‘seeing in a new way.’ However, no interaction between students’ majors and genders was found, indicating that the effect of students’ major does not depend on gender with respect to all seven categories of COLS.

The main purpose of this study was to concurrently investigate Taiwanese high-school students' and their science teachers' conceptions of learning science (COLS) and conceptions of science assessment (COSA). A total of 1,048 Taiwanese high-school students and their 59 science teachers were invited to fill out two questionnaires assessing their COSA and COLS. The main results indicated that, first, although a handful of different patterns occurred, students and teachers were found to have similar COLS–COSA patterns. In general, students and teachers with COSA as reproducing knowledge and rehearsing tended to possess lower-level COLS, such as learning science as memorizing, testing, and calculating and practicing. In contrast, if students and teachers viewed science assessment as improving learning and problem-solving, they would be prone to regard science learning as increase of knowledge, applying, and understanding and seeing in a new way. However, the students' conceptions did not align with those of the teachers' in certain aspects. The students tended to regard science learning and assessment at a superficial level (COLS as ‘memorizing’, ‘testing’, and ‘calculating and practicing’ and COSA as ‘reproducing knowledge’), while the teachers’ conceptions were at a more sophisticated level (COLS as ‘application’ and ‘understanding and seeing in a new way’ and COSA as ‘improving learning’). It is evident that a dissonance exists between the students' and teachers' COLS and COSA. Based on the results, practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The cram school in Taiwan offers additional after‐school instruction to enhance students’ academic performance, and it provides a unique educational context to investigate students’ perspectives toward learning. The purpose of this study was to explore 45 cram school students’ (around 14 years old) conceptions of learning and learning science. The research data were gathered from interviews with each of the students, and the interview responses were further analyzed by a phenomenographic method. It was found that most of these students conceptualized learning or learning science as memorizing school knowledge, preparing for tests, or practicing tutorial problems and processing calculations. This study also revealed that about 76% of the students expressed coherent views between conceptions of learning in general, and those of learning science in particular. Further analyses of student interview responses suggested that the students held a quantitative view of learning (science) and they tended to atomize school knowledge while learning (science). Their motivation for learning was mainly driven by external factors, such as examination scores, and they probably employed a surface approach to learning. Moreover, their conceptions of learning or learning science might imply a dualist epistemology for the nature of knowing and knowledge. This study also showed some evidence that the special educational context of cram schools might guide students develop certain conceptions of learning, thus leading to particular study and motivational approaches.

Educators and psychologists have evidence that students’ conceptions of learning have a profound influence on the learning process, and thus are related to learning outcomes. The purpose of this paper was to explore the conceptions of learning science held by 120 Taiwanese high school students. The interview data gathered from these students, analysed by a phenomenographic method, revealed seven categories of conceptions of learning science, including: learning science as memorizing, preparing for tests, calculating and practising tutorial problems, the increase of knowledge, applying, understanding, and seeing in a new way. The educational contexts or curricular programmes in which these high school students enrolled also played a role in their conceptions of learning science. This study finally proposed a framework to describe the variations of the conceptions of learning science, consisting of the following features: the forms of knowledge acquisition, motivational orientations, and standards of evaluating learning outcomes. How to change students’ unfruitful conceptions of learning science was also discussed.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest among educational researchers in exploring the relationships between learners’ epistemological beliefs and their conceptions of learning. This study was conducted to investigate these relationships particularly in the domain of science. The participants in this study included 407 Taiwanese college science‐major students. All of them responded to two major questionnaires, one assessing their scientific epistemological beliefs (SEBs) and the other one probing their conceptions of learning science (COLS). The SEB questionnaire included four factors: “certainty,” “source,” “development,” and “justification” of science knowledge. The COLS survey consisted of six factors in a hierarchical order, that is, learning science as “memorizing,” “preparing for tests,” “calculating and practicing,” “increasing one’s knowledge,” “application,” and “understanding and seeing in a new way.” The students’ confidence and interest toward learning science were also assessed by additional questionnaire items. Stepwise regression analyses, in general, showed coherence between students’ SEBs and their COLS, indicating that the sophistication of SEBs was consistent with less agreement with lower‐level COLS (such as “memorizing” and “preparing for tests”) as well as more agreement with higher‐level COLS (such as “understanding and seeing in a new way”). However, the SEB’s “justification” factor was positively related to almost all of COLS factors from the lower‐level to higher‐level. This study finally found that among all of the SEB and COLS factors, the “preparing for tests” factor in COLS was the solely significant variable for predicting students’ interest in science and confidence toward learning science.

This study used three previously validated instruments, namely Science Academic Hardiness (SAH), Students’ Conceptions of Learning Science (COLS) and Science Learning Self-Efficacy (SLSE) on 431 Singaporean students. Using structural equation modeling, results showed that the SAH commitment dimension a positive predictor explaining both the reproductive (e.g. science learning as memorizing or testing) and constructivist (e.g. science learning as understanding or seeing in a new way) conceptions of science learning as well as all dimensions of students’ self-efficacy among high school students. It was also found that the SAH control dimension is a positive predictor for explaining the SLSE science communication dimension but is a negative predictor for explaining reproductive COLS. Finally, only students with constructivist COLS had significant associations with all SLSE dimensions. These findings suggest that students’ personal commitment to learning science is an important aspect to cultivate since it has the ability to predict conceptions of science learning and self-efficacy. Further, creating opportunities for students to be engaged in learning through constructivist ways—such as designing tasks to help students understand and see phenomena in new ways and occasions for students to apply their science knowledge to solve science problems—is likely to lead to positive self-efficacy in practical science work, science communication, and everyday applications of scientific knowledge. Additionally, students’ engagement in reproductive ways of learning science—such as memorization, testing, and calculating and practicing—could be reduced since these do not contribute to building students’ science learning self-efficacy.

Background: The sophistication of students’ conceptions of science learning has been found to be positively related to their approaches to and outcomes for science learning. Little research has been conducted to particularly investigate students’ conceptions of science learning by laboratory.Purpose: The purpose of this research, consisting of two studies, was to explore Taiwanese university science-major students’ conceptions of learning science by laboratory (CLSL).Sample: In Study I, interview data were gathered from 47 university science-major students. In Study II, 287 university science-major students’ responses to a CLSL survey were collected.Design and methods: In Study I, the interview data were analyzed using the phenomenographic method. Based on the findings derived from Study I, Study II developed an instrument for assessing students’ CLSL by exploratory factor analysis.Results: Study I revealed six categories of CLSL, including memorizing, verifying, acquiring manipulative skills, obtaining authentic experience, reviewing prior learning profiles, and achieving in-depth understanding. The factor analysis in Study II revealed that the ‘verifying’ category was eliminated, but found another new category of ‘examining prior knowledge.’Conclusions: This study finally proposes a framework to describe the variations of CLSL, consisting of three features: cognitive orientation, metacognitive orientation, and epistemic orientation. Possible factors influencing students’ CLSL are also discussed.

Previous studies have addressed the positive influences of augmented reality (AR) on science learning. However, few studies have explored how learners consider learning science by such an emerging technology, particularly from the perspectives of conceptions of learning. This study therefore aimed to develop a survey to understand students’ conceptions of learning science by AR (CLSAR) considering their demographic characteristics and scientific epistemic beliefs. The CLSAR survey was validated by the responses of 267 junior high school students. The results indicate that the students generally exhibited positive conceptions, with stronger perceptions of learning science by AR as increasing motivation and interaction. Although they expressed less negative conceptions, their considerations of learning science by AR as diminishing learners’ imagination about the scientific information were stronger than those as interrupting learning. The students’ grade level played a role in their conceptions, but their gender did not. However, when considering the relationships between the students’ scientific epistemic beliefs and their conceptions, the gender factor may interfere with the relations. Based on the findings, some suggestions for the development of AR-related science learning systems are discussed.

Conceptions of learning have been known as having influence on students’ learning outcomes, the one of which is science learning as to be a scientifically literate person. Even, the effects of students’ conceptions in learning have been known, but the contributing factors are still vague. This research aims to explore Indonesian high-school students’ conceptions of learning science (COLS), to find out if gender and students’ favorite science subject cause differences in their COLS, and to validate the COLS instrument by using Rasch analyses. Thirty-one items measuring six COLS were administered to 609 Indonesian high-school students. Rasch analyses, an independent sample t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and cluster analyses featuring chi-square tests of interdependence were used to answer the research questions. Based on the analyses, it was found that the COLS instrument was best fitted as six-dimensional. Gender difference was emerged in memorizing, and differences based on students’ favorite science subject were also found in memorizing and calculating and practicing. Finally, the results of cluster analyses showed that Indonesian students were divided into three different classes based on their COLS, and that the clusters were significantly related to the school locations. Keywords: conceptions of learning science, gender, Indonesia, science learning, secondary level.

Design-based learning has been internationally recognized as a key approach to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at K-12 levels, where students are encouraged to learn STEM through the engineering design process. In this regard, it is argued that design-thinking mindsets play a crucial role in facilitating students’ learning of STEM when engaging in design-based activities. While research has indicated that design-based learning can facilitate students’ learning of scientific concepts, it is unclear whether, and which dimensions of, design-thinking mindsets support the conceptual learning of science. This study aims to explore 37 eighth-grade students’ conceptual learning and design-thinking mindsets in the context of design-based learning on pulleys. The students completed two instruments, namely a conceptual test on pulleys and a Likert-scale questionnaire measuring design-thinking mindsets, before and after the design-based learning. In a comparison between two classes of students, using the non-parametric method of Mann-Whitney U tests in each measurement, some dimensions of design-thinking mindsets that facilitate conceptual learning on pulleys were identified. These dimensions included: (a) mindfulness to the process and impacts on others; and (b) orientation to learning by making and testing. Based on these results, recommendations for the effective enactment of design-based learning in order to develop students’ scientific understanding are provided.

Past studies have shown that students' conceptions of learning science (CLS) are related to their approaches to learning science (ALS) and to their self-efficacy for learning science (SELS), but it has not yet been studied whether parents' CLS play a role in children's ALS and SELS. This research investigated 472 pairs of Chinese high school students and their parents to identify the new predictive relationships among parents' CLS and students' ALS and SELS. In this study parents' CLS was divided into reproductive and constructivist conceptions. Students' ALS consisted of four factors, whereas SELS only extracted one factor. We found that (1) parents' constructivist CLS was positively associated with students' deep approaches; (2) parental reproductive CLS could positively predict students' surface strategies, while it was likely that the more constructive conceptions that parents held, the less their children would adopt surface strategies; (3) parental constructivist and reproductive CLS were both significant positive predictors of students' surface motive; and (4) parental CLS could make an indirect prediction through students' ALS. The findings indicate that parents should be cautious about the CLS they are portraying in their words and deeds to help foster their children's deep learning motive and strategies.

Augmented reality (AR) demonstrates great promise in science education. However, students’ conceptions of learning when they learn science using AR are currently unclear. This study aimed to analyze learners’ views and scientific epistemic beliefs on learning science. Eighty-two elementary school students in grades 4–6 participated in a two-week course on the introduction to sound. The intervention adopted inquiry-based learning utilizing three AR software programs that integrated multisensory channels. The data were collected through Cheng’s Conceptions of Learning Science by AR (CLSAR) questionnaire and Learners’ Scientific Epistemic Beliefs (SEB) questionnaire. The results show that students in this study generally had positive conceptions of learning science and a high level of scientific epistemic beliefs. Moreover, gender differences existed in the relationship between CLASR and SEB. This study contributed to the currently unresolved discussion of the impact of demographic differences on students’ learning, indicating that AR can be used to enhance senior students’ learning of science in elementary schools.

Students’ conceptions of learning science and their relations with motive for learning may vary as the education level increases. This study aimed to compare the quantitative patterns in students’ conceptions of learning science (COLS) and motives for learning science (MLS) across grade levels by adopting two survey instruments. A total of 768 high school students were surveyed in Taiwan, including 204 eighth graders, 262 tenth graders, and 302 12th graders. In the current research, memorizing, testing, and calculating and practicing were categorized as reproductive conceptions of learning science, while increase of knowledge, applying, understanding and seeing-in-a-new-way were regarded as constructivist conceptions. The results of multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) revealed that conceptions of learning science are more constructivist as education level increases. Both tenth graders and 12th graders endorsed understanding, seeing-in-a-new-way, and the constructivist COLS composite more strongly than the eighth graders did. In addition, the results of multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis indicated that the positive relations between testing and reproductive COLS were stronger as the grade level increased, while the negative relations between reproductive COLS and deep motive were tighter with the increase in grade level.