Author(s):
Need: The economy and future workforce call for a shift of education goals from a focus on content delivery to fostering advanced skills such as reasoning, creativity, and problem-solving. Within this project, the team is developing and evaluating a suite of introductory physics lab activities designed to promote scientific reasoning, with an emphasis on skills associated with control of variables (COV), data analytics, and causal decision-making. This work aligns with a growing body of research that underscores the importance of scientific reasoning, where strong abilities have been found to positively correlate with course achievement, improvement on concept tests, and engagement in higher levels of problem solving. Unfortunately, college students lack many essential scientific reasoning abilities and recent reports indicate that these skills do not necessarily improve across the college experience. Furthermore, while the promotion of scientific reasoning has become an important part of modern education, the research literature for instructional strategies that promote related skills is extremely limited. Guiding Questions: The research provides formative evaluation to guide the development of the lab curriculum while contributing to the research literature. Research questions:1.To what extent does the enhanced lab curriculum improve student reasoning skills in COV, data analytics, and causal decision-making? How are high-level COV skills impacted by targeted training on data analytics and causal reasoning? What are the interactions, if any, among the three? 2.What are the differences, if any, in scientific reasoning skill development of various subgroups, including women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities? Outcomes:The curriculum has undergone iterative refinement, with each iteration evaluated for its efficacy in enhancing the targeted reasoning skills. The Inquiry in Scientific Thinking, Analytics, and Reasoning (iSTAR) assessment, developed and validated by our research team, is administered as a pre- and post-test each semester to measure this impact. Statistically significant shifts have been observed for each targeted skill domain, with smaller shifts in causal reasoning. Consequently, recent revisions to the curriculum place greater emphasis on promoting this skill. Revisions involve the use of question prompts and graphic organizers to scaffold and enhance students’ understanding of causal relationships. Data collection for impact of the revised curriculum is underway. Broader Impacts: The curricular framework and curriculum developed within this project offer innovative ways in which transferable reasoning abilities can be enhanced through physics lab courses, thereby promoting essential skills that current students will need in the future. Guided by research outcomes encompassing diverse subgroups, including women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities, these strategies have the capability to advance essential reasoning skills for all students. Designed with adaptability in mind, the lab materials are being developed for seamless integration into existing introductory physics courses, potentially impacting thousands of STEM majors, including those at two-year colleges and high schools. In addition, given that the targeted scientific reasoning skills cross many areas of STEM, the research outcomes and end products are expected to be adaptable across many disciplines.
Coauthors
Lei Bao, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; Krista Wood, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH; Sarah Baker, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
