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The importance of evidence-based reasoning has been emphasized in educational standards across domains (e.g., the Common Core Standards, 2010; the Next Generation Science Standards, 2013) as well as in the learning goals for various introductory undergraduate courses (e.g., psychology, American Psychological Association, 2013; sociology, Pike et al., 2017; statistics, Carver et al., 2016). Nevertheless, prior research has found students to experience a variety of challenges with evidence-based reasoning. These included difficulties in reasoning about evidence (e.g., differentiating among various types of quantitative evidence, List et al., 2022; drawing appropriate evidence-based conclusions, Bleske-Rechek et al., 2015) and reasoning with evidence (e.g., providing appropriate and sufficient evidence in support of claims, McNeill & Krajcik, 2008). While a number of interventions have been developed to improve students' evidence-based reasoning, these have mostly focused on fostering students' provision of evidence while engaging in argumentations (i.e., reasoning with evidence, Iordanou & Constantinou, 2014; Reznitskaya et al., 2007). Less has been done to improve students' reasoning about evidence, an important aspect of evidence-based reasoning and a precursor to students' effective evidence provision. The purpose of the present studies was to examine the effectiveness of an Evidence-Based Reasoning (EBR) intervention in improving students' reasoning about (i.e., identification, interpretation, and evaluation of) four types of evidence that are quantitative (i.e., evidence that is descriptive, comparative, causal, and correlational). Participants were undergraduates enrolled in an introduction educational psychology course. In Study 1, students first completed a set of pre-test measures. This included an Objective Evidence-Based Reasoning (OEBR) task assessing students' abilities to identify different evidence types (i.e., identification) and draw appropriate evidence-based conclusions (i.e., interpretation), and a Constructed Evidence-Evaluation (CEE) task, assessing students' abilities to evaluate conclusions or claims based on the type of evidence presented within constructed newspaper stories. Then, students were randomly assigned to one of two conditions, either completing the EBR training (i.e., intervention condition) or completing a training about research methods adapted from a textbook for Introduction to Psychology (i.e., control condition). Finally, all students completed a set of post-test measures, including the OEBR and CEE task as well as an Authentic-Constructed Evidence Evaluation (A-CEE) task assessing students' evaluation of evidence-based conclusions drawn from real newspaper articles. Results from Study 1 showed that the EBR intervention was more effective in improving students' OEBR task performance (i.e., evidence identification and interpretation), but not on their CEE task performance (i.e., evaluation of evidence-based conclusions). Analyzing students' justifications in the evidence evaluation task, I found that one possible reason for this lack of effect on the CEE task was that the key reasoning strategy of identifying evidence type was not made salient enough to students. Therefore, I conducted a follow-up study to examine the effectiveness of a modified version of the EBR training (Study 2). In Study 2, the last module of the EBR intervention was removed. Instead, students were asked to identify the type of evidence presented and explicitly directed to consider evidence type when evaluating evidence-based conclusions during their completion of CEE and A-CEE tasks at post-test. Students otherwise followed the same procedure as in Study 1. Results showed that this modified version of EBR had similar effects in improving students' OEBR task performance as the enhanced book chapter. At the same time, the EBR intervention was more effective in improving students' CEE and A-CEE task performance than the enhanced book chapter. This indicates the EBR intervention might have helped students develop more robust schema for evidence types, that students could then draw upon when evaluating evidence-based conclusions. Thus, across two studies, I demonstrate the promise of the EBR intervention in improving students' evidence-based reasoning.
Teach students essential skills with engaging activities. Explore key reasoning skills from the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards and strategies for teaching them to students. Then, discover fun, research-based games and activities to reinforce students’ reasoning skills. This practical text provides clear guidance for incorporating these tools into your classroom to prepare students for academic and lifetime success.
There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition was published and its influence has been wide and deep. The report summarized insights on the nature of learning in school-aged children; described principles for the design of effective learning environments; and provided examples of how that could be implemented in the classroom. Since then, researchers have continued to investigate the nature of learning and have generated new findings related to the neurological processes involved in learning, individual and cultural variability related to learning, and educational technologies. In addition to expanding scientific understanding of the mechanisms of learning and how the brain adapts throughout the lifespan, there have been important discoveries about influences on learning, particularly sociocultural factors and the structure of learning environments. How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures provides a much-needed update incorporating insights gained from this research over the past decade. The book expands on the foundation laid out in the 2000 report and takes an in-depth look at the constellation of influences that affect individual learning. How People Learn II will become an indispensable resource to understand learning throughout the lifespan for educators of students and adults.
This study investigates the effectiveness of an instructional strategy that uses students' prior understanding of informal evidence based reasoning (EBR) to build an understanding of scientific EBR. A pre and post instructional strategy survey revealed that students' understanding of EBR increased over the length of the study. Data collected from pre and post instructional discussions also showed increases in the amount of EBR students used.
This book examines the learning and development process of students’ scientific thinking skills. Universities should prepare students to be able to make judgements in their working lives based on scientific evidence. However, an understanding of how these thinking skills can be developed is limited. This book introduces a new broad theory of scientific thinking for higher education; in doing so, redefining higher-order thinking abilities as scientific thinking skills. This includes critical thinking and understanding the basics of science, epistemic maturity, research and evidence-based reasoning skills and contextual understanding. The editors and contributors discuss how this concept can be redefined, as well as the challenges educators and students may face when attempting to teach and learn these skills. This edited collection will be of interest to students and scholars of student scientific skills and higher-order thinking abilities.
Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.
Praise for How Learning Works "How Learning Works is the perfect title for this excellent book. Drawing upon new research in psychology, education, and cognitive science, the authors have demystified a complex topic into clear explanations of seven powerful learning principles. Full of great ideas and practical suggestions, all based on solid research evidence, this book is essential reading for instructors at all levels who wish to improve their students' learning." —Barbara Gross Davis, assistant vice chancellor for educational development, University of California, Berkeley, and author, Tools for Teaching "This book is a must-read for every instructor, new or experienced. Although I have been teaching for almost thirty years, as I read this book I found myself resonating with many of its ideas, and I discovered new ways of thinking about teaching." —Eugenia T. Paulus, professor of chemistry, North Hennepin Community College, and 2008 U.S. Community Colleges Professor of the Year from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education "Thank you Carnegie Mellon for making accessible what has previously been inaccessible to those of us who are not learning scientists. Your focus on the essence of learning combined with concrete examples of the daily challenges of teaching and clear tactical strategies for faculty to consider is a welcome work. I will recommend this book to all my colleagues." —Catherine M. Casserly, senior partner, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching "As you read about each of the seven basic learning principles in this book, you will find advice that is grounded in learning theory, based on research evidence, relevant to college teaching, and easy to understand. The authors have extensive knowledge and experience in applying the science of learning to college teaching, and they graciously share it with you in this organized and readable book." —From the Foreword by Richard E. Mayer, professor of psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara; coauthor, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction; and author, Multimedia Learning
How Students Learn: Science in the Classroom builds on the discoveries detailed in the best-selling How People Learn. Now these findings are presented in a way that teachers can use immediately, to revitalize their work in the classroom for even greater effectiveness. Organized for utility, the book explores how the principles of learning can be applied in science at three levels: elementary, middle, and high school. Leading educators explain in detail how they developed successful curricula and teaching approaches, presenting strategies that serve as models for curriculum development and classroom instruction. Their recounting of personal teaching experiences lends strength and warmth to this volume. This book discusses how to build straightforward science experiments into true understanding of scientific principles. It also features illustrated suggestions for classroom activities.
This Springer Brief provides theory, practical guidance, and support tools to help designers create complex, valid assessment tasks for hard-to-measure, yet crucial, science education standards. Understanding, exploring, and interacting with the world through models characterizes science in all its branches and at all levels of education. Model-based reasoning is central to science education and thus science assessment. Current interest in developing and using models has increased with the release of the Next Generation Science Standards, which identified this as one of the eight practices of science and engineering. However, the interactive, complex, and often technology-based tasks that are needed to assess model-based reasoning in its fullest forms are difficult to develop. Building on research in assessment, science education, and learning science, this Brief describes a suite of design patterns that can help assessment designers, researchers, and teachers create tasks for assessing aspects of model-based reasoning: Model Formation, Model Use, Model Elaboration, Model Articulation, Model Evaluation, Model Revision, and Model-Based Inquiry. Each design pattern lays out considerations concerning targeted knowledge and ways of capturing and evaluating students’ work. These design patterns are available at http://design-drk.padi.sri.com/padi/do/NodeAction?state=listNodes&NODE_TYPE=PARADIGM_TYPE. The ideas are illustrated with examples from existing assessments and the research literature.
For a scientifically literate society, there must be trust in the scientific community. This is only possible with an appreciation for the value of consensus, and the rigors that scientific consensus inherently requires. Students need more practice with construction and identification of valid explanations, in addition to more experience comparing and communicating multiple claims for the same question. Argumentation by evidence provides these opportunities and is the seventh practice of the Next Generation of Science Standards. This action research based project measured the effect student participation in a treatment consisting of five scientific argumentation activities on students' evidence-based reasoning skills, comfort levels and general attitudes towards science. Results showed slight improvement of evidence-based reasoning skills, a more complete understanding of scientific argumentation as a practice, and higher confidence and comfort levels when doing science. Results also indicated a slight improvement in students' abilities to identify valid evidence and reliable sources of information. This study also measured the types of evidence and quality of claims and justification provided by students during the treatment activities. Patterns seen in these measurements included common use of definitions as claims, inability to construct a concise yet sufficient claim, difficulty distinguishing claims from evidence, and a prevalent student viewpoint that providing justification for evidence is of less importance than providing evidence for claims.