高中生對於核能發電爭議之非制式推理思考-兼探網路探究活動之影響

Abstract

At the 21st century, preparing learners’ ability to deal with socio-scientific issues has been recognized as an important goal for science education. In science education, previous studies regarding learners’ informal reasoning on socio-scientific issues were mainly conducted with qualitative analyses. With 68 tenth graders in Taiwan, this study initially attempted to explore students’ informal reasoning on a socio-scientific issue both qualitatively and quantitatively. In this study, “nuclear power usage” was used as the socio-scientific issue for the participants to reason. The conduct of this study was divided into two phases: the “informal reasoning exploration phase”, mainly examining the relationship between students’ informal reasoning and scientific epistemological beliefs (SEBs) as well as their cognitive structures, and the “on-line searching task phase”, mainly focusing on the effects of different on-line searching activities on students’ informal reasoning. In the first phase, the students’ SEBs were accessed by a questionnaire; the data regarding the students’ cognitive structures were collected by tape-recorded interviews; and, an open-ended questionnaire was utilized to gather the data about the participants’ informal reasoning on nuclear power usage. The findings derived from the first phase imply that learners’ informal reasoning on a socio-scientific issue is, in general, correlated with their SEBs as well as their cognitive structures regarding this issue. Moreover, it was also found that the students’ usage of the “comparing” information processing mode was the best predictor for their informal reasoning quality, while their beliefs about the nature of science knowing was the second best predictor for their informal reasoning quality. Besides, the importance of the richness of students’ cognitive structures on their informal reasoning regarding a socio-scientific issue was also highlighted. In the second phase, by using a quasi-experimental research approach, thirty-three students were assigned to a “guided searching task group”, while thirty-five students were assigned to an “unguided searching task group”. Both the students in the two groups were asked to search relevant information regarding nuclear power usage on the Internet and integrate what they had searched into a report during the period of two classes (100 minutes). However, the students in the un-guided searching task group were asked to search freely, while those in the guided searching task group were provided with a searching guideline. The results of second phase showed that the two groups of students did not show any significant difference on their searching outcomes (p>0.05), but it revealed significant effects of guided on-line searching task on students’ cognitive structure outcomes as well as on their supportive argument construction (p<0.05). However, the guided on-line searching task in this study did not significantly facilitate students’ reasoning quality. Besides, the interaction between students’ SEBs and instructional conditions on students’ searching outcomes as well as on their cognitive structure outcomes was found; also, the interaction between students’ information commitments and instructional condition on students’ cognitive structure outcomes as well as on their informal reasoning outcomes was revealed. It suggests that, when trying to improve students’ informal reasoning ability in Internet-based learning environments, science instructors should pay more attention to the role of learners’ SEBs and the information commitments in their learning outcomes. In sum, the findings in current study did provide more insights into the nature of students’ informal reasoning on a socio-scientific issue, and also showed some initial evidences on the usefulness of on-line searching activities on learners’ informal reasoning on this issue.At the 21st century, preparing learners’ ability to deal with socio-scientific issues has been recognized as an important goal for science education. In science education, previous studies regarding learners’ informal reasoning on socio-scientific issues were mainly conducted with qualitative analyses. With 68 tenth graders in Taiwan, this study initially attempted to explore students’ informal reasoning on a socio-scientific issue both qualitatively and quantitatively. In this study, “nuclear power usage” was used as the socio-scientific issue for the participants to reason. The conduct of this study was divided into two phases: the “informal reasoning exploration phase”, mainly examining the relationship between students’ informal reasoning and scientific epistemological beliefs (SEBs) as well as their cognitive structures, and the “on-line searching task phase”, mainly focusing on the effects of different on-line searching activities on students’ informal reasoning. In the first phase, the students’ SEBs were accessed by a questionnaire; the data regarding the students’ cognitive structures were collected by tape-recorded interviews; and, an open-ended questionnaire was utilized to gather the data about the participants’ informal reasoning on nuclear power usage. The findings derived from the first phase imply that learners’ informal reasoning on a socio-scientific issue is, in general, correlated with their SEBs as well as their cognitive structures regarding this issue. Moreover, it was also found that the students’ usage of the “comparing” information processing mode was the best predictor for their informal reasoning quality, while their beliefs about the nature of science knowing was the second best predictor for their informal reasoning quality. Besides, the importance of the richness of students’ cognitive structures on their informal reasoning regarding a socio-scientific issue was also highlighted. In the second phase, by using a quasi-experimental research approach, thirty-three students were assigned to a “guided searching task group”, while thirty-five students were assigned to an “unguided searching task group”. Both the students in the two groups were asked to search relevant information regarding nuclear power usage on the Internet and integrate what they had searched into a report during the period of two classes (100 minutes). However, the students in the un-guided searching task group were asked to search freely, while those in the guided searching task group were provided with a searching guideline. The results of second phase showed that the two groups of students did not show any significant difference on their searching outcomes (p>0.05), but it revealed significant effects of guided on-line searching task on students’ cognitive structure outcomes as well as on their supportive argument construction (p<0.05). However, the guided on-line searching task in this study did not significantly facilitate students’ reasoning quality. Besides, the interaction between students’ SEBs and instructional conditions on students’ searching outcomes as well as on their cognitive structure outcomes was found; also, the interaction between students’ information commitments and instructional condition on students’ cognitive structure outcomes as well as on their informal reasoning outcomes was revealed. It suggests that, when trying to improve students’ informal reasoning ability in Internet-based learning environments, science instructors should pay more attention to the role of learners’ SEBs and the information commitments in their learning outcomes. In sum, the findings in current study did provide more insights into the nature of students’ informal reasoning on a socio-scientific issue, and also showed some initial evidences on the usefulness of on-line searching activities on learners’ informal reasoning on this issue.