Abstract
Scientific reasoning, though not explicitly taught in classrooms, is promoted as a major goal for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education at all levels, worldwide. Literature also indicates that the time spent by learners explaining and justifying their ideas strongly correlates with learning improvement. In Swaziland, however, reports from school science inspectors and school leaving examiners point to weak evidence of scientific reasoning skills from school-based and high-stake examinations. This contradicts the main education goal at this level – producing learners who can use science phenomena awareness for reasoning through diverse life contexts. The study was conceived within the interplay between cognitive and sociocultural theories of constructivism. It focuses on how senior secondary school Physical Science teachers use informal formative assessment (IFA), and how the assessments so used support scientific reasoning. Through the qualitative inquiry approach a multiple case study design was used where four teachers in the Manzini Region were purposively sampled and their lessons observed. The data were then analysed through content analysis and Furtak, Harding, Beinbrech, Shavelson, and Shemwell (2008)’s analytical framework. The study revealed that teachers initiated learner-centred dialogues to address misconceptions and ask further clarification questions. Practical work and contingency based oral questions generated a reach variety of scientific reasoning levels while cases where teachers treated none response moments by supplying answers generated the least reasoning levels. All in all, by diligently using IFA to support learning, teachers realised opportunities for assisting learners migrate from concrete operational to formal thinking levels.
Highlights
When oral questioning is viewed from that angle it forms a major part of informal formative assessment
The current study, aims at assessing the extent to which informal formative assessment, in the form of classroom talk, affects scientific reasoning in senior secondary Physical Science classrooms. To achieve this goal we focused on two questions: 1) How do Physical Science teachers use informal formative assessment in their lessons? 2) To what extent do teachers use informal formative assessment to support scientific reasoning?
Research question 1: How do teachers use informal formative assessment during their lessons? The themes that emerged from the data corpus after the analysis indicated that teachers used informal formative assessment in five different ways: Recognition of prior knowledge, Scaffold prescription; Probing; Oral Evaluation and Treating own Question
Summary
Assessment is about questioning, something that can occur formally or informally. Most of informal assessment occurs formatively through classroom talk. As early as 1910 Dewey had defined this skill as an active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends This skill is needed in the school curriculum since it generates people with sound decision making, leadership and scientific judgement. The lack of pillars such as scientific reasoning makes it hard for critical thinkers to interpret the evidence that emerges from their analysis of data. In the science classroom before learners investigate a phenomenon, they declare a hypothesis which in ....’s view is a major sign of the beginning of critical thinking over a situation This hypothesis is neither wrong nor right until suitably interpreted evidence proves it otherwise. The implication of the curriculum emphasis on SR is that the teaching of subjects like Science is changed from being straight forward empirical information to being a form of reasoning from evidence, a way of doing and thinking which involves higher-order thinking and evidence-based reasoning (Cope, 2013)
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