A Study on Students' Scientific Attitude of Suspended Judgment under Goal Direction

• Main Authors: Hau-Shing Lau, 劉浩欣
• Other Authors: Chih-Hsiung Ku
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/09254328194656078568

碩士 === 國立花蓮師範學院 === 科學教育研究所 === 94 === This study was based on the concepts about learning of authentic science. "Suspended Judgement Test" (practice) was applied to understand students' performance and scientific attitude of suspended judgment in real context, and further analysis was conducted on students' scores of general scientific attitude on the Scientific Attitude Scale. Meanwhile, on the basis of social practice perspective, "goal direction" proposed by socio-psychologist Kunda (2000) was taken as the theoretical foundation for investigations. Subjects of this study were 397 high-grade students from 12 classes of elementary schools in Hualien County. The research was divided into two stages. In the first stage, "Scientific Attitude Scale", " Suspended Judgement Test" (practice) and interview were executed. In the second stage, 4 classed were assigned at random for the experimental accuracy goal group and closure goal group, whom were given Suspended Judgement Test (accuracy goal version) and (closure goal version) respectively, and another 4 classes as the control group, provided with Suspended Judgement Test (control group version) to investigate the influence of goal direction on their scientific attitude of suspended judgment. Also, 6 students selected from the experimental group were interviewed for evidences to support the quantitative data. The conclusions of the research were: 1. A gap was found between students' actual performance in practice and their scores on Scientific Attitude Scale. Only a poor proportion of those regarded as high-scientific-attitude-characteristic succeeded in performing scientific attitude of suspended judgment. The results revealed that, among the 20 students who took the Suspended Judgement Test (practice), only 3 (15%) out of the 10 high-scientific-attitude-characteristic ones made their judgments after conducting their experiments, while all of the low-scientific-attitude-characteristic students failed to demonstrate scientific attitude of suspended judgment. 2. Students' scientific attitude of suspended judgment was context-dependent reasoning. The main findings were as follows: (1) Students' scientific attitude of suspended judgment could be aroused by accuracy goal message. It was found that, regarding to the number of experimental group students with accuracy goal who chose to / not to conduct the experiment, significant differences were found in the Chi-square test (χ²) on all of the four questions (P<0.05). In terms of the student number, a positive tendency of students changing to conduct the experiment was observed. In comparison, students in the control group showed no significant difference in the Chi-square test on the four questions (P<0.05), and in terms of student number, no positive or negative variation on each question was evident. (2) Students' scientific attitude of suspended judgment could be influenced by Closure goal message. It was found that, considering the number of experimental group students with closure goal who chose to / not to conduct the experiment, significant differences were found in the Chi-square test (χ²) on all of the four questions (P<0.05). In terms of the student number, the students tended to change their choice for not conducting the experiment. In comparison, students in the control group showed no significant different in the Chi-square test on the four questions (P<0.05), and in terms of student number, no positive or negative variation on each question was evident.