Marcos Critique Paper

Marcos Stafne
Logics of Inquiry/ Tobin
Critical Review 1
February 23, 2008

Falk, J. H., Moussouri, T., & Coulson, D. (1998). The effect of visitors' agendas on museum learning. Curator, 41(2), 106-20.

A continuous battle rages between the marketing and education departments within museums to meet the needs of the visitors who walk through the doors. Both departments want high quality programs that can inform the public and sustain the operating life of the museum, but the agenda for each department is different. The agenda of the marketing department often focuses on the high impact leisure and social aspects of the museum environment, often downplaying the educational aspects of individual exhibitions, and relying on the spectacular nature of the museum aesthetic and extravagant programs to draw crowds:

Bring them in with whatever brings them in, and if they get some education out of it, that's great, but let's not count on it.

The education department's agenda focuses on disseminating as much information about a subject as possible. They may over-stimulate the environment with obsessive amounts of information that may overwhelm a visitor into having a negative experience with a subject matter:

Visitors should and must care about this stuff, so let's give them as much stuff as we can.

What both departments need to do is find out what the visitor wants, and try to provide different methods to deliver the optimal museum experience: a balance of education and entertainment that satisfies the mission of the museum, and sustains operations. For the museum professional, the need to study the visitor, their intentions for visiting, and how a visitor learns in a museum, has become the focus of many research projects.

In "The effect of visitors' agendas on museum learning," John Falk and his team measure how individual visitor agendas affect the learning outcomes of museum visitors to a particular exhibition. Using random assignment, Falk surveyed adults who entered the Geology, Gems and Minerals Exhibition within the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. before and after their visit to the exhibition. To identify the individual agendas, visitors were asked to identify their particular motivation for coming to the museum or exhibition, and their strategy for navigating their visit.
Falk separated visitor motivations into six categories: place (the museum is part of a tourist package or a landmark), education (visitors may learn something by seeing the museum or exhibitions), life-cycle (visitors came as children, and are now sharing that experience with their children), entertainment (visitors came for a leisure/ social experience), and practical reasons (economical, or timely reasons for visiting). Along with motivation, Falk examined visitor strategies for navigating their museum experience. Visitor strategies were placed on an axiological "continuum" of unfocused and focused motivations for visiting a museum. Visitors who wished to engage in specific exhibitions were placed on the focused edge of the continuum, where as those who were open to experiencing anything that the museum had to offer (from general experience to specific exhibits), were placed on the unfocussed edge of the continuum. Visitor motivation was measured using a Likart-like survey, and the visitor strategy was measured using a qualitative rating system that placed visitors along the continuum.
To measure learning in museums, Falk used a methodology called Personal Meaning Mapping (PMM), based in constructivist theory that examines how an "educational experience uniquely affects each individual's personal, conceptual, attitudinal, and emotional understanding." The PMM was administered to randomly chosen adult visitors before they entered the Geology, Gems and Minerals Exhibition. Each of the selected visitors were asked to write down words that they associated with "gems + minerals." They were then interviewed about why they wrote those words. When the selected visitors concluded their exhibition exploration, the PMM was administered a second time, and the results were analyzed to see if their vocabulary, categorical ability, conceptual understanding, and mastery of the concepts changed.
The results of the study concluded that visitors were able to learn in the Geology, Gems and Minerals Exhibition and that visitor agenda did have an effect on how much the visitors did learn. Visitors with educational motivations had the expected outcome of learning from the exhibition. The surprising result of the research was that visitors who had an entertainment motivation also showed a high outcome of learning as well.
Falk concluded the study by suggesting that further research should be done on the visitor agenda, strategy, and learning in the museum, especially with how agenda and strategy intersect. This study was also used as proof that people do learn in museums, even if their visit within a particular exhibition occurs within a short amount of time.


Visualizing Falk's Research

Falk used multiple theoretical frames to measure visitor motivation, strategy, and learning. The first tool was an analysis of motivation. Motivations for visiting museums were divided into place, education, life-cycle, social event, entertainment, and practical issues. For the purposes of visualizing the motivations provided by Falk, I have placed each of these items as exclusive points on a line that can move up and down, and side to side along the continuum of visitor strategy.

































Visitor strategies were placed on an axiological "continuum" of unfocused and focused motivations for visiting a museum. Visitors who wished to engage in specific exhibits were placed on the focused edge of the continuum, and those who were open to experiencing anything that the museum had to offer (from general experience to specific exhibits) were placed on the unfocussed edge of the continuum. To visualize this theory, I have created a line that correlates what Falk terms the "level of focus of a visit (unfocussed, medium focus, and focused)" to how the visitor approaches the whole museum, or specific exhibitions within the museum. This correlation creates three zones, with the General Museum/ Unfocussed Zone being the largest zone, and the Specific Exhibitions/ Focused Zone being the smallest.




With this continuum illustrated, the motivation line may be placed in on top of it and intersect it at various points. Those entering a museum with an entertainment motivation may be found straddling the Unfocussed to Medium Focused Zones, while those visiting with an educational motivation may straddle the medium focused to focused zone.







One of the key components that Falk does not address is the amount of variability that occurs in the agenda of the visitor once inside the museum. Outside factors may change an individual motivation from moment to moment once inside the museum. Those having unfocussed visits to the museum (those who wish to see the general museum) may within moments of entering change their agenda due to programmatic decisions that the museum makes. If the museum structures programs in such a way as to dictate the flow of visitors within the museum, then the motivations within the museum may change. If the museum has an IMAX movie scheduled at 4:30, and the visitor purchased a ticket for this show at 2:30, then place, education, life cycle and social motivations for visiting the museum may become secondary to the entertainment and practical motivations. The agenda variability changes once the visitor has entered the museum, and motivations may change at any point in visitor's experience.
While there is always a chance of variability within any point of visitation in a free choice learning environment, the amount of variability decreases once the visitor has chosen to have a focused experience. This "agenda variability" may be categorized as high, medium and low agenda variability, and can intersect the three visitor strategies that Falk discusses (unfocussed, medium focus, and focused). As the visitor's experience becomes more focused then the variability of the agenda may decrease.





In the randomized assignment survey that Falk conducted to correlate learning and motivation, Falk started with visitors who were already in the museum with a focused agenda and a low variability of change. The visitors that his team encountered in the Geology, Gems and Minerals Exhibition were already focused in that they were choosing to step foot inside this exhibition, or had specifically come to see that particular exhibition. While Falk indicated that motivation and strategy could affect the outcomes of learning in the exhibition, the visitors who entered the museum were already purposefully there. To isolate motivation in a more succinct way, Falk could have surveyed visitors at the entrance of the museum where initial motivations and strategies would be clearer.
The positivistic approach that John Falk and his team of researchers undertook in studying "the effects of visitor's agenda on museum learning" was a counterintuitive way of assessing and valuing constructivist learning within a museum. While Falk framed his research with reference to constructivist learning, the random assignment method of surveying the visitors did not allow for the visitors to construct the ways in which they were being assessed. This may have led to the disappointing number of people who finished the exit survey and interview. They were unable to construct the terms of the assessment, so their investment of the assessment fell prey to a changing motivation of the "practical reason" of time.
Falk's team did use interview to discuss the words that were associated with "gems + minerals," but did not move with the visitors through the exhibit to see how their attitudes may have changed exhibit to exhibit. If some of the visitors had been qualitatively assessed throughout the experience, then many more observations about how motivations and strategies change could have been recorded.
In the conclusion of this research, Falk makes a bold claim that this study of 40 adults who entered the Geology, Gems and Minerals Exhibition had the outcomes of learning, regardless of motivation. Falk uses this statement to generalize that learning in a museum happens. The high level of focus and motivation that the participants had coming into the exhibition may have led to high educational outcomes of the study. For the study to have generalizability, the sample would have to be much larger, and over different periods of the year (the research was done shortly after the exhibit opened, it was a featured attraction of the museum).
This type of research is incredibly valuable to the museum field. Learning can and does occur in a museum, but so does fun and entertainment. A successful museum must look to accomplish both, and not discount the other. Museums must acknowledge that the visitor has an agenda when entering the facility, and try as best as they can to meet the needs of the agenda. Museums may do this by having accessible information about exhibitions and programs on the museum website and other publications, so that visitors can plan an agenda, and set motivations before their visit. This will lesson agenda variability and can allow for a more focused visit, which may yield higher educational and entertaining outcomes. Falk was correct that his research launched the need for more research on visitor studies in museums. Qualitative approaches to visitor studies may yield higher results then the cold quantitative analysis that Falk's team produced. If museums are to be a part of the community, and the community is able to assess how well the museum is doing, then both may flourish together.





--
Marcos A. Stafne
917.562.0613/ fax 718.699.1340
Let's Get Creative!- Check out my 365 day quest!
http://coscreative.blogspot.com/

Mitch Memo #3 on Thayer-Bacon and Moyer

If not sure if we are memo-ing this week, but here's mine...

Memorandum on	Mitch Bleier U ED 70300 Prof. K. Tobin Spring 2008 February 20, 2008
Thayer-Bacon, B. and Moyer, D. (2006). Philosophical and historical research. In K. Tobin and J. Kincheloe (Eds.). Doing educational research: A handbook (pp. 139 – 155). Rotterdam (NL): Sense Publishers.

Thayer-Bacon and Moyer (2006) discuss the hegemonic nature of the Natural Sciences, which casts an air of illegitimacy on other models and traditions of meaning making. They argue that “scientific forms of argumentation are considered the norm in research, and other forms…are considered inferior [at best]” (p.140). Students in educational research courses learn quantitative and qualitative research, “both of which are scientific forms of research” (p. 140), but philosophical arguments and logic are rarely included.

The authors make a case for historical and philosophical research as alternatives more appropriate for some types of educational research. Although these are venerable fields (in fact, there was a time when scientific reasoning was subject to the hegemony of philosophy), the authors state that in the current climate they must continually defend and justify not only their findings and conclusions, but also the methodology and methods that they employ. It is not just scientific forms of research to which status and funding are proffered, but even within their own fields of study, the authors report that their “practitioner-oriented” research is seen as inferior to “pure” philosophy and history.

The authors provide examples of their own research, defend it as serious professional practice, and in making the case for the significance of their contributions, criticize the “dismissals and…shortsightedness” of institutions and other researchers. They conclude that “it is…dangerous for scientific research to deceive itself into thinking that it doesn’t need history and philosophy to critique itself.” This arrogance ultimately will lead to its own demise.

Kara Memorandum 2

Memorandum 2

Wheatley, Grayson H. (1991). Constructivist perspectives on science and mathematics learning. Science Education, 75, 9-21.

Wheatley examines constructivism as a basis for math and science instruction in schools. His two tenets of constructivism are that knowledge is actively built up by individuals, not passively received; and cognition is adaptive and serves the organization of the experiential world rather than one true reality. Students work together on problems that force them to come up with ideas for a possible solution, explain and discuss those ideas, and then reflect on how those ideas fit in with their knowledge up to that point. The class eventually reaches some consensus on the problem and solutions. Communication is the process through which we give meaning to something, so the social aspect of learning is vital. Wheatley contends that instead of the behaviorist view of learning prevalent in the schools, where only skills are identified as important, there needs to be a shift towards creating environments where children construct math and science by sharing their ideas with peers, including the teacher, and talk math and science with each other.
Implementing problem centered learning would require reorganization of the curriculum into fewer, broader topics, plus a reconstruction of most educators’ schemes of knowledge, as well as assessment models. Besides the changes in teacher roles in a classroom, from the “giver of knowledge” to a nonjudgmental facilitator who helps empower the students to learn for its own sake, a great deal of time would have to be dedicated to developing meaningful problems and activities that build upon students’ knowledge and also challenge them.

RE: Questions by 7?

Here is the memorandum for Wheatley. I am also posting it on the blog.

 

Marcos, sorry it is late. I only went online now to send it and saw your mail asking for it by 7. I was in a meeting.

 

Thanks,

Kara

 

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From: Marcos Stafne [mailto:marcos.stafne@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 11:31 PM
To: Logicsgroup3; Dorota Koczewska; kara
Subject: Questions by 7?

 

Hi All:

Do you think you could have questions by 7 pm tomorrow night? This way, I could send to Greta.

Here is one possible question I would like to pose. 

Is social constructivist learning language dependent? At what point do you move from the the axis of individual creation of knowledge to social construction of knowledge?

Thanks,
Marcos

--
Marcos A. Stafne
917.562.0613/ fax 718.699.1340
Let's Get Creative!- Check out my 365 day quest!
http://coscreative.blogspot.com/

Judy Touzin - Memo #2

Judy Touzin
Memorandum #2
February 13, 2008

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Many Faces of Constructivism
D.C. Phillips

In this piece, Phillips argues that there are too many schools of thought that all exist under the umbrella term of constructivist. He stresses that there are three main axes along which different scholars, theorists, and authors agree or disagree. The first axis has at one extreme a focus on the cognitive development of the individual learner. The other end focuses entirely on the development of "public" subject matter domains. While some scholars are clearly at one pole or the other, some occupy a point somewhere between these two extremes.

The second axis along which some constructivist thinkers are scattered is the most significant to Phillips because to be at one end, "nature the instructor", would deem one a minimal constructivist, if a constructivist at all. In this view, nature is "imposing" knowledge on the learner. The other end of this axis is more closely associated with radical constructivists. At this end, "humans the creators", knowledge is only what one comes to know through experience.

On the third axis, one end addresses the activity of the individual while the other focuses on social/political factors and the effect that such factors may have on activity and thus knowledge production.

Phillips contends that it is difficult to develop a coherent understanding of constructivism because scholars may be at the same pole on one axis but at opposite poles on the next. What is promising, regardless the axis or the pole, is the idea that constructivism calls for an honoring of the individual as the primary participant in his or her learning.

Comment to marcos memo 2

I find this interesting because it highlights the fact that these conversations are happening in multiple fields. I feel like it may be more manageable for a museum to work to reach its ideal of creating meaning making spaces that honor how much the visitor brings to the art and vice versa. But I am not that knowledgeable about the museum world. Are their assessments are rating systems that get in the way of this goal?

There is something to be said about the idea of standardized testing and notions of efficiency and how these serve to dull many learning
environments. But then what is the accountability alternative?

Judy

Group 3 Discussion Questions

Hey all,

A couple of things kept coming up for me as I completed the readings for tomorrow night's class.

1) It seems that pedagogical practices flow from epistemological notions. For example, those who engage in or advocate for constructivist learning environments do so because they believe that knowledge is constructed. However, it seems that the work of teacher education programs centers almost exclusively on pedagogical practices without adequately addressing the epistemological underpinnings of such practices. What can teacher education programs do to address this disconnect? Is it worthwhile to address this disconnect considering that the pedagogical practices in most schools are reflective of the "knowledge is transferable" model?

2) Wheatley states that "Learning in considered the neutralization of perturbation..." Do non-constructivst models produce a pseudo neutralization or pseudo learning? How does this idea connect to the notion of "problematizing the situation",, which is often central to the work of critical pedagogues?

Judy

Questions by 7?

Hi All:

Do you think you could have questions by 7 pm tomorrow night? This way, I could send to Greta.

Here is one possible question I would like to pose. 

Is social constructivist learning language dependent? At what point do you move from the the axis of individual creation of knowledge to social construction of knowledge?

Thanks,
Marcos

--
Marcos A. Stafne
917.562.0613/ fax 718.699.1340
Let's Get Creative!- Check out my 365 day quest!
http://coscreative.blogspot.com/

Marcos Memo 2

Hello All:  This is a departure from assigned reading which we will discuss in class.  I am interested in discussing constructivist methodologies in relation to museums as well as schools.  "art" holds as much reverence in the field of aesthetics as "math" can in schools: One way to view/learn about it....

Marcos Stafne
Memorandum 2
Logics of Inquiry/ Professor Tobin
February 11, 2008


Lankford, E. Louis. "Aesthetic Experience in Constructivist Museums." Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol 36, No. 2.  pp 140- 153. Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2002.

The struggle for art museums to adopt constructivist methodologies is highlighted in this essay about the interrelation of aesthetics and meaning making.  In the past decade art museums have made the leap from transmission models of education, to constructivist models, placing visitors to museums in the socio-cultural context of how art was conceived.  By placing a greater emphasis on visitor interrelation to the world that surrounds the art, as opposed to the art itself, museums are allowing more access to the visitors who may not have the knowledge to initially interpret how art effects them.

Lankford stresses that the total environment of the art museum also adds to the ability of the visitor to make connections with the art.  Every nuance of the actual space from lighting, to how the art is hung, creates associations with personal experiences of the individual.  The museum is also a free-choice environment, where people are free to explore as much or as little as they choose.  Special consideration must be taken by exhibition designers and curators to allow for an appropriate environment for meaning making to take place in.  The visitors bring as much to the work of art, as the work of art can impart to the visitor. 

Lankford also encourages the development of constructivist learning activities in museum, but not at the expense of accuracy and content.  It is the museum's role to distinguish fact from fiction, and lead visitors in multiple ways to share in the experience that a museum has to offer.


--
Marcos A. Stafne
917.562.0613/ fax 718.699.1340
Let's Get Creative!- Check out my 365 day quest!
http://coscreative.blogspot.com/

Memorandum #2 on Phillips' Good, Bad, Ugly

Editing to 250 wds really takes some of the meaning out of this. I will provide a longer version to anyone who thinks it might be useful.

Memorandum on	Mitch Bleier U ED 70300 Prof. K. Tobin Spring 2008 February 13, 2008
Phillips, D. C. (1995). The good, the bad, and the ugly: The many faces of constructivism. Educational Researcher. 24(7), 5-12.

“Informed critique must be based on a clear understanding of the position (or range of positions) being examined” (p. 5). D. C. Phillips has provided us with a guide to Constructivism(s), a collection of varied, sometimes contentiously debated, and often subtly different beliefs.

His field guide approach to stalking the wild Constructivist, or Positivist, or whatever, is immensely helpful in getting a handle on ideas to which many of us have come late in the third act, if not after the play is already over, trying to make sense of the arguments without the benefit of watching them slowly develop and evolve over time. By Phillips’ own admission, his arguments are not without flaw, and not without their legitimate criticisms, but nonetheless, provide a useful framework for exploring these topics.

Phillips provides us with a graphic scheme in three dimensions to help us organize Constructivist thinking. The first axis is “individual psychology versus public discipline.” It reflects a concern for how individuals build a body of knowledge versus how groups construct knowledge. The second axis is “nature as template” for knowledge versus “human as creator” of knowledge. The third axis is the construction of knowledge via internal cognition versus its sociopolitical construction. The various Constructivists can be placed anywhere along each of these continua sometimes in more than one location.

Phillips cautions us that defining the various epistemological camps and placing the various combatants within them must be accompanied by examination of pedagogical, social and political positions that each take.

Re: LogicsGroup3 Blog

I am fine with being coordinator for this round.  It's just coordinating questions- no big deal.  I will let Gretta know, but will wait to make comments until Monday evening- Judy & Dorota- I resent you invitations to the blog so that you can directly correspond.  Mitch: I just set up the google group- please let me know if receive the email-

Thanks,
Marcos

On Feb 9, 2008 6:12 PM, Judy Touzin <jt422@nyu.edu> wrote:

Hi Group 3!
I nominate Marcos to be the coordinator for our group since he was able to set up the blog and he seems to be able to complete all of the readings.  I will read the articles by Monday and forward my thoughts for discussion topics to everyone or just try to post them on the blog...let me know if anyone seconds that nomination...of course you are free to kindly refuse the nomination,    Marcos :-)  see you all on Wednesday.

Judy

----- Original Message -----
From: mitch@ccny.cuny.edu
Date: Friday, February 8, 2008 11:59 am
Subject: Re: LogicsGroup3 Blog

To: Marcos Stafne <marcos.stafne@gmail.com>, Judy Touzin <jt422@nyu.edu>, Dorota Koczewska <dotka@juno.com>, KaraBH@nyc.rr.com
Cc: mitch@ccny.cuny.edu


> Hey group 3,
>
>  I couldn't find the Wheatley article, for which our group is
> responsible, online.  The one on blackboard is not the one that the
> reference indicates it should be.
>
>  I found it at CCNY and scanned it.  See attached.
>
>  --Mitch
>

--
Marcos A. Stafne
917.562.0613/ fax 718.699.1340
Let's Get Creative!- Check out my 365 day quest!
http://coscreative.blogspot.com/

Welcome Kara

Welcome to Group 3 Kara.

--Mitch

Group Coordinator?

Would anyone like to be the group Coordinator? I can be, as default, but I will not be ready by Sunday at 7 pm to discuss.
-Marcos

--
Marcos A. Stafne
917.562.0613/ fax 718.699.1340
Let's Get Creative!- Check out my 365 day quest!
http://coscreative.blogspot.com/

Marcos Memo 1

Marcos Stafne
Memorandum #1
Logics of Inquiry/ Professor Tobin
February 4, 2008

Tobin, K. & Capie, W. (1982). Development and validation of a group test of integrated processes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 19, 133-142.

The conclusion of this article states that the Test of Integrated Science Processes (TSIP) "has direct applicability to classroom based research and evaluation of instruction and learning (140)." The TSEP was developed in relation to the teaching and evaluation of process based learning based on a set of twelve objectives serving as a center for both lessons and test. The twelve objectives were used as one frame in which to teach process skill learning, and the TSIP was administered as the assessment to view whether these skills had been learned. The TSIP was found to be an effective assessment for both middle school and college students, and thus declared generalized for all students, if reading levels were set to appropriate grade standards. 
    The TSIP follows an assumption that all students in all grade levels will be able to have process skills measured from this type of assessment.  The evidence provided lies in the trials of thirteen classes of middle school children, and 109 female college students. Averaging the effectiveness of the test on middle school students and college students only gives an approximation of the validity of the TSIP on high school students, but does not allow for the various developmental changes that may occur in students from ninth grade to college.  Also, as the sampling of college-aged students was entirely female, the averaged achievement was significantly gender biased as the 109 college females creates almost one fourth of the findings. 
    The TSIP may be used as one tool for evaluation, but must be further studied with the inclusion of high school students, and a greater equilibrium of male to female students tested.


--
Marcos A. Stafne
917.562.0613/ fax 718.699.1340
Let's Get Creative!- Check out my 365 day quest!
http://coscreative.blogspot.com/

Memorandum on Phillips' "Two Decades After... (Week of 2/6/2008)

Mitch Bleier

Prof. K. Tobin

U ED 70300

Spring 2008

February 6, 2008

Memorandum on:

Phillips, D. C. (2004). Two decades after: “After the wake: Postpositivistic educational thought. Science & Education. 13, 67-84.

It is generally believed that positivism, a philosophical position that “was dominant during the middle third of the [20^th] century…had a profound but pernicious effect on conceptions of the nature of science…[and it] eventually sickened and died” (p. 70). D. C. Phillips points out that positivism “has become a widely-used term of abuse” (p. 68) applied to authors with whom the accuser(s) disagrees on a particular point or idea that also may be shared with actual positivists. In this paper, Phillips tries to referee what is and has been a sometimes intellectually violent argument.

Phillips asserts that positivism is/was not monolithic. He describes a variety of different but related positions that, generally, are labeled as positivism. He compares these positions, indicates which of them are extant in some guise or another, which can actually be considered dead, and why each of these ideas has fallen into disfavor.

Phillips concludes by indicating that, although we are better for the demise of positivism(s), the positivists themselves did important work that sought to make research in the social sciences better and more useful. Quoting R. H. Ashby (1964), he numbered among their contributions to philosophy, an “interest in cooperation,” “high standards of rigor” and an attempt to develop “methods of inquiry that would lead to commonly accepted results.”

Additional Reference.

Ashby, R. W. (1964). Logical positivism. In O’Connor, D. J. (ed.), A critical history of western philosophy. New York: The Free Press.

Memorandum #1 Test of Integrated Science Processes

Judy Touzin
Logics of Inquiry
Professor Tobin
Memorandum #1
February 6, 2008

Development and Evaluation of a Group Test of Integrated Processes
Kenneth G. Tobin and William Capie

The abstract of the article states, "Since the items measure performance on objectives that can be readily translated into classroom activity, the test has direct applicability to classroom based research, and evaluation of instruction." Such a statement takes for granted the range of differences inherent as one moves from school to school, classroom to classroom, and teacher to teacher. The suggested generalizability or applicability of its findings needs to be balanced by a sober understanding of the fact that true replication is not something that can be guaranteed when considered within the context of the variable nature of human interaction.
The Test of Integrated Science Processes (TISP) was developed based on twelve predetermined objectives that were considered the twelve objectives one must successfully go through when planning and conducting an investigation. The designers (Tobin and Capie) chose to specify objectives hierarchically so as to display the progression in intellectual skill sets. What this design does not address is the possibility that some students employ the use of objectives other than the twelve that they predetermined. Further, it fails to take into account that the rationale of individuals might not proceed in the hierarchical fashion that Fig. 1 suggests. The 24 questions that they chose for the TISP were based on the twelve objectives (two questions per objective).
The study involved two sample groups. While it highlights the heterogeneity of the middle school sample (6th, 7th, and 8th grade students with mixed levels of SES, and intelligence and of different races), it does not explain the obvious homogeneity of the college sample (109 female college students).
A final critique of the study is that the items of the test were solely reflective of the twelve objectives that the researchers had identified as being components of planning and conducting an investigation. It is plausible that there are objectives that were not addressed. Further, the TISP results determined that "students with higher levels of formal reasoning ability tended to achieve at a higher level on the TISP" but does not offer insight into what contributed to the varying degrees of formal reasoning ability.

Judy Touzin

Confusion About Assignments

OK. Please help me get this straight.

1. We write a memorandum about one of the articles assigned to us each week. This week our group is assigned Phillips and Arendt. I'm afraid that I am not going to be much help with Arendt.
   
   
2. We have a Tobin article to critique. These were assigned separately from this group. How do we write this up?

Right?

Integrated Science Processes

The abstract of the article states, " Since the items measure performance on objectives that can be readily translated into classroom activity, the test has direct applicability to classroom based research, and evaluation of instruction." Such a statement takes for granted the range of differences inherent as one moves from school to school, classroom to classroom, and teacher to teacher. The suggested generalizability or applicability of it's findings needs to be tempered by a sober understanding of the fact that true replication is not something that can be guaranteed when considered within the context of human interaction.

email test 2

email test 2

--
Marcos A. Stafne
917.562.0613/ fax 718.699.1340
Let's Get Creative!- Check out my 365 day quest!
http://coscreative.blogspot.com/

Well, I'm on. I'll try to take some time from the 100s of pages of reading to figure out how this works.

Thanks Marcos for setting this up.

Email Test

Email Test

--
Marcos A. Stafne
917.562.0613/ fax 718.699.1340
Let's Get Creative!- Check out my 365 day quest!
http://coscreative.blogspot.com/

Test

Test Post