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Students' Perceptions of Environmental-Based Inquiry Experiences

Posted on: Sunday, 9 May 2004, 06:00 CDT

The purpose of this study was to investigate student perceptions of inquiry-based pedagogy within the context of learning about environmental concepts and issues. The study was descriptive in nature and employed a single group, pretest-pastiest design, surveying 367 students. The chi-square analysis indicated that 17 of the 29 survey items were answered in a statistically different manner. This suggests that students perceived the environmental inquiry-based experiences to be nontraditional in the approach to teaching and assessment and to emphasize scientific investigations. Students, however, did not perceive science learning to be different from that of past science experiences. Implications to science instruction and teacher professional development are discussed.

The National Research Council (NRC) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) have called for science teaching that is inquiry based. The NRC (2000) has synthesized inquiry-based teaching into five essential features: learners generating investigatible questions, planning and conducting investigations, gathering and analyzing data, explaining their findings, and sharing and justifying their findings with others.

Inquiry, as presented in the NRC (2000) standards, moves learners beyond merely hands-on experiences so that they are actively engaged in discovering phenomena, exploring interesting possibilities, and making sense of scientific ideas. Inquiry-based teaching, however, varies by the degree of teacher direction and the level of student ownership (NRC, 2000). Similarly, Tafoya, Sunal, and Knecht (1980) defined four levels of inquiry-based teaching:

1. Confirmation activities require students to verify concepts through a given procedure.

2. Structured-inquiry activities provide students with a guiding question and procedure to follow.

3. Guided-inquiry activities provide students with a guiding question and suggested materials; however, the students design and direct the investigation.

4. Open-inquiry activities require students to generate their own research question and design their own investigation.

The ENVISION professional development program integrates learning environmental science content through inquiry with learning to teach science through inquiry. Pedagogically, this gives teachers an opportunity to immerse themselves in the essential features of classroom inquiry while learning scientific concepts related to the environment (NRC, 2000). In essence, teachers learn environmental science content, learn about scientific inquiry, and learn about how to teach science through inquiry by participating in inquiry as learners. The ENVISION program engages teachers in three basic types of inquiry activities: field studies/environmental monitoring, investigative laboratories and models, and environmental science research. These activities emphasize inquiry teaching along a student-centered continuum (NRC, 2000) and reflect Tafoya et al.'s (1980) guided and open-inquiry levels.

The way science is taught reinforces students' attitude toward science (Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1990). Therefore, the pedagogical nature of the inquiry experience and the degree of teacher structure and student ownership may influence students' attitude toward science. Student attitude toward science is developed over time from an accumulation of science classroom experiences (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975).

It has been shown that students' attitudes toward science are influenced by the interactions and actions of the teacher (Koballa & Crawley, 1985), the instructional approach and curricular materials (Schilbeci, 1983), and the nature of the activities conducted (Talton & Simpson, 1987). Further, Shymansky, Kyle, and Alport (1983) in their meta-analysis of the science curricula ofthe 1960s and 70s found that such programs improved students' attitudes toward science. These studies suggest that inquiry-based science teaching may improve students' perceptions of their science learning experiences, leading to the development of a more positive attitude toward science.

Although there has been much research on students' environmental attitudes, little research has been conducted with regard to students' perceptions of environmental-based science learning experiences (see Rickinson, 2001). The purpose of this study was to investigate student perceptions of inquiry-based pedagogy within the context of learning about environmental concepts and issues. Specifically, do the students of teachers who participated in the ENVISION environmental science professional development program have a more positive perception of science teaching. The research question for this study was as follows: Do students perceive environmental science-based inquiry teaching and learning differently than past science instruction?

The significance of this research lies in its evaluation of the effectiveness of the inquiry-based pedagogy promoted during the ENVISION professional development program. It is important for researchers to understand how students perceive their science experiences in order to develop curriculum and design instruction that promotes students' science learning and positive attitude toward science. The study also adds to the extant research base in science education in regard to students' perceptions of environmental-based science learning experiences.

Method

This study is descriptive in nature. Descriptive designs aim to produce a data set for the purpose of describing a situation or event or individuals' perceptions of their experiences (Isaac & Michael, 1987). Specific to this study, the aim was to describe students' perceptions of their science experiences for the purpose of (a) defining and comparing practice, (b) evaluating programmatic impact, and (c) supporting decisions regarding future program design and implementation.

The study involved a single group, pretest-posttest design. This design was appropriate because the study is interested in determining students' perception of science teaching prior to and following exposure to an instructional treatment. Also, since student perceptions tend to reflect immediate past experiences, administering the perceptions survey prior to the instructional treatment captures students' perception of past science teaching. Administering the perceptions survey following the instructional treatment ensured that student responses reflected the immediate science experience.

Instructional Treatment: ENVISION Professional Development Program

The ENVISION summer institute was designed to enhance science teachers' inquiry-based teaching, environmental science content knowledge, and inquiry skills and abilities. The 4-week summer institute emphasized the development of these abilities relevant to the study of watersheds, urban and built environments, and rural environments through various approaches to inquiry teaching, including field studies, investigative laboratories, and environmental research.

In environmental research, teachers generate research questions based on site surveys and observations, plan investigations using scientific equipment and tools, analyze data using scientific ideas, and communicate findings and processes through the creation of authentic products (i.e., original written reports and PowerPoint presentations).

In field studies and investigative laboratories teachers engage in scientifically oriented questions and give priority to evidence, but the procedures and equipment used is less student centered. In both activities teachers formulate their own explanations based on data and guidance from identified resources. Field studies involved teachers in environmental monitoring, following standardized protocols for collecting data on key environmental parameters in order to determine environmental quality. Field studies, for example, involved teachers in monitoring wetlands, streams, forests, and urban settings. Investigative laboratories engaged teachers in following standardized protocols for analyzing environmental samples and comparing results to environmental standards. Example laboratory investigations included soils and drinking water analysis.

Teachers developed an instructional plan that detailed the manner in which they would integrate the environmental science content and inquiry-based pedagogy modeled throughout the institute into their current curriculum. This required teachers to reflect on their learning experiences to further understand practice in order to plan instruction (NRC, 1996). In this way, the teachers' instructional needs were addressed. The teachers' inquiry-based pedagogical techniques, as described in their instructional plans are shown in Table 1.

Middle level teachers participated in the ENVISION program in teams. Teams consisted of Level I and Level II teachers from the Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Level I teachers participated in the summer institute and designed and conducted professional development for teacher colleagues-Level II participants. Thus, Level I teachers were trained by ENVISION staff, and Level II teachers were trained by their school colleagues. Level I teachers were prepared to work with \Level II teachers and were required to prepare a Level II training plan to guide their work with their Level II colleague. As a part of this training teachers read and discussed Chapter 5 of Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000) on preparing teachers to use inquiry-based teaching, critiqued video clips from a Level II training program, and interacted with a previous year Level II teacher about their perspective on what makes Level II training effective.

Table 1

The Inquiry-Based Components of Teachers' Instructional Plans

Participants

Teachers who participated in the second year of the ENVISION program administered the survey to their students, for a total of 31 classrooms or approximately 550 students. Due to student absenteeism and attrition and errors in survey administration, not all student surveys were included in the data analysis. Only data from students who completed both the presurvey and postsurvey were used. Thus the sample size for this study was 367 students (322 students from Level I teacher classrooms and 45 students from Level II teacher classrooms), or roughly 66% of the student surveys completed. Based on the demographic data providedby the teachers, the majority (50%) of students came from rural or small town settings compared to urban/ inner city settings (13%). The remaining students (37%) were characterized as being from other settings (e.g., suburban schools).

Instrument Design: Student Perception Survey

The student perception survey was piloted with first-year ENVISION teachers and revised based on the responses of 380 students, resulting in a 29-item Likert scale survey that was used for this study. The survey required students to rate each item on a scale of 1 to 5: very often, often, sometimes, never, and rarely. Students entered their responses on an optical scanning sheet. Each item was designed to measure the students' perception of instruction as consisting of traditional or nontraditional practice (see Table 2 for a description). The survey was designed in part based on the tool kit utilized by Ohio's National Science Foundation (NSF) State Systemic Initiative (Ohio SSI; Boone & Kahle, 1997).

The evaluation specialist, a team of science educators and middle school science teachers reviewed selected Ohio SSI items with regard to the goals of the ENVISION project. The Ohio SSI and ENVISION both focus on middle schools, thus serve similar student populations. Furthermore, the Ohio SSI was developed based on the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996), which was also the focus of the ENVISION program. Because of these and other similarities between the Ohio SSI and ENVISION, it was deemed appropriate to construct the student perception survey based on the Ohio SSI instrument. In addition, new items were authored reflecting ENVISION goals not addressed by the set of Ohio SSI items. A chi-square item level analysis was conducted on the pilot data (Cody & Smith, 1987) to determine if items had favorable discriminating power. Items that failed to significantly discriminate were discarded. Although it is not common practice to calculate a reliability coefficient when data analysis is conducted at the item level, we calculated an alpha reliability for the final pre and post surveys: r = 0.76 for the presurvey and r = 0.78 for the postsurvey.

Data Collection and Analysis

The student perception survey was administered by teachers to the students in one of their classrooms at the start of the school year and again following implementation of their ENVISION instructional plan. Student responses at the beginning of the school year reflect students' views of past science experiences. Student response following the implementation of the ENVISION experience reflect their view of the environmental inquiry-based science experience.

The data was first analyzed descriptively to evaluate the use of the rating scale by respondents. Review of the rating structure suggested that for a chi-square comparison of student responses at the two time points required combining the very often and often categories. The never, rarely, and sometimes categories were also collapsed. A chi-square item level analysis was conducted on the collapsed data (Cody & Smith, 1987). A chi-square test of significance allows one to compare the distribution of responses as a function of subgroups without having to correct for issue of linearity between categories. For this study, comparing student responses with regard to their view of past science experiences to their view of the ENVISION science experience. This technique has been used in a range of settings for a variety of data sets (Boone, Braile, Krockover, & Rizzo, 1999). A value of p = .05 was selected prior to the analysis of the data set.

Table 2

Item Categories and Description

Further, a post hoc analysis was conducted, whereby the items were grouped into four categories: nontraditional teaching (items 1, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 20, 21, 25); nontraditional assessment (items 15-18, 22, 23); scientific investigations (items 19, 24, 26-29); and science learning (items 2-6, 10). The description of these categories may be found in Table 2. Categories were analyzed by comparing the number of significant items to the total number of items for each category. This analysis provided a holistic view of students' perceptions of their learning experiences.

Results

Table 3 summarizes the results, the percentage of students who responded very often or often to each item as a function of whether students were considering past science experiences (PE) or the environmental inquiry-based experiences (EE). The chi-square statistic comparison of student responses is also provided. The chi- square analysis indicated that 17 of the 29 items were answered in a statistically different manner as a function of past science experiences and the environmental inquiry-based experiences. The authors believe that because students viewed some survey items in a different manner yet viewed other items in a similar manner, there is no tendency for students to be more or less lenient with regard to rating past or present activities. Table 4 summarizes the number of survey items that students rated as occurring significantly more often by inquiry experience and category type, providing a holistic view of students' perceptions of their learning experiences.

Table 3

Student Perceptions Survey Results

The environmental inquiry experiences implemented by these teacher participants appear to utilize a range of nontraditional teaching techniques. Teachers who had participated in ENVISION lectured less (Item 8), required less memorization (Item 11), used the textbook less (Item 1), required students to analyze data they had collected (Item 25), encouraged a greater amount of group work and collaboration (items 12, 13, and 27), and required the results of laboratory experiments to be applied to new situations (Item 30). Furthermore, the assessment techniques differed greatly frompast science assessments, with past science assessments reflecting more traditional assessments (i.e., multiple choice tests, true/false tests, and end of chapter tests). Also, students reported that their past science assessments more often contained questions that had only "one" right answer (Item 22).

The data suggest that some commonalities existed between students' environmental inquiry experiences and past science experiences. For example, students indicated that they had little say in deciding what took place in class (Item 9) for both their past classrooms ( 12%) and for the inquiry experiences (16%). Students also did not differ by the frequency (45%) in which they reported conducting laboratory experiments that took one class period (Item 22).

The category results provide a holistic view of students' perceptions of their environmental inquirybased learning experiences. Students viewed such experiences as being nontraditional in the teaching and assessment approaches used and said that they emphasized scientific investigations. Student perceptions of science learning, however, were not different from that of past science experiences. Thus, students perceived the inquiry lessons as nontraditional, yet perceived that science learning still emphasized the learning of facts and vocabulary and the memorization of information.

Table 4

Percentage of Significantly Different Items by Category for Inquiry Teaching

Discussion

Based on student perceptions it may be concluded that teachers who participated in ENVISION were successful in presenting environmental inquiry-based science teaching differently than the traditional approaches to science teaching. The findings suggest that by equipping teachers with the tools to implement inquiry in their classroom, the ENVISION professional development program had a positive impact on students, as evidenced by the survey results. This conclusion stems primarily from the fact that participating teachers engaged in professional practice that encouraged designing and conducting of science investigations that modeled different approaches to inquiry. This professional development was designed to model effective pedagogy for the teaching of environmental research, content, and issues. Because of this design, teachers learned pedagogical techniques appropriate for nontraditional teaching and the use of alternative (nontraditional) forms of assessment and developed an instructional plan that integrated these practices into their existing curricular frameworks. This finding is consistent with the findings of Supovitz and Turner (2002), who noted a relationship between the teacher professional development program and the development of nontraditional teaching practices.

The teachers' instructional plans reflected inquirybased pedagogy at the guided inquiry level. This fact may explain why students perceived that they had little say in decidin\g what took place in both the PE and EE experiences. Furthermore, the teachers' instructional plans emphasized inquiry-based (i.e., questions before answers) and model-based laboratories. Thus, students may have perceived these experiences as being no different than past science experiences, in that they lasted no more than one class period. If the teachers implemented the inquiry-based and model-based laboratories as modeled during the summer institute, they would have required several class periods to complete however, not all of the instruction would have taken place in a "laboratory setting." Therefore, these students may not have perceived the pre and post laboratory experiences as part of the inquiry experience.

One particularly interesting finding is that, although students perceived the science teaching and assessment experiences to be different, they saw no difference in the way science was supposed to be learned. A possible explanation is that although the teachers implemented inquiry in a nontraditional manner they still emphasized science learning from a traditional science teaching perspective; that is, they maintained similar student expectations or outcomes- that students need to learn science facts. Alternatively, perhaps the schooling process has so ingrained students in the notion that learning science requires knowing science facts that they perceive all approaches to science learning through an epistemological lens that reveals science as an accumulation of facts.

Conclusion

Based on these students' perceptions of their classroom experiences it may be concluded that the ENVISION professional development program had a positive impact on participants' classroom practice. This conclusion indicates that professional development programs should model appropriate practice and engage teachers in learning about inquiry through inquiry. The increase in nontraditional science teaching and assessment, along with an increase in the use of student-centered inquiry in the classroom, may have implications to students' interest in and attitude toward science. Future studies may investigate the relationship between student perceptions and their interest in and attitude toward science. An interesting follow-up study would be to determine if participating teachers changed their instructional approach for other science topics, shedding light on the transferability of the inquiry-based pedagogy promoted in the ENVISION professional development program. Teacher participation in professional development programs that utilize inquiry should be promoted because of positive outcomes for both the teacher and students.

References

Boone, W., & Kahle, J.B. (1997). Implementation of the standards: Lessons from a systemic initiative. School Science and Mathematics, 97(6), 292-300.

Boone, W., Braile, L., Krockover, G., & Rizzo, A. (1999). Science instruction for all: Implications for science educators. Science Educator, 8(1), 43-48.

Cody, R., & Smith, J. (1987). Applied statistics and SAS programming language, New York: North Holland Press.

Cronin-Jones, L. L. (2000). The effectiveness of schoolyards as sites for elementary science instruction. School Science and Mathematics, 100(4), 203-211.

Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I (1975). Belief, attitude, intention, behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Isaac, S., & Michael, W.B. (1987). Handbook in research and evaluation for educators and the behavioral science (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: EdiTS Publishers.

Koballa, T.R., & Crawley, F.E. (1985). The influence of attitude on science teaching and learning. School Science and Mathematics, 85(3), 222-231.

Milton, B., Cleveland, E., & Bennett-Gates, D. (1995). Changing perceptions of nature, self, and others: A report on a park/school program. The Journal of Environmental Education, 2(5(3), 32-39.

National Research Council. (1996). National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

National Research Council. (2000). Inquiry and the national science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Parker, V, & Gerber, B. (2000). Effects of a science intervention program on middle-grade student achievement and attitudes. School Science and Mathematics, 700(5), 236-242.

Rickinson, M. (2001). Learners and learning in environmental education: a critical review of the evidence. Environmental Education Research, 7(3), 207-320.

Rutherford, J.F., & Ahlgren, A. (1990). Science for all Americans. New York: Oxford University Press

Schibeci, R.A. (1983). Selecting appropriate attitudinal objectives for school science. Science Education, 67(5), 595-603.

Shymansky, J.E., Kyle, W.C., & Alport, J.M. (1983). The effects of new science curricula on student performance. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 24, 61-76.

Supovitz, J.A., & Turner, H.M. (2002). The effects of professional development on science teaching practices and classroom culture. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 37(9), 963-980.

Tafoya, E., Sunal, D., & Knecht, P. (1980). Assessing inquiry potential: A tool for curriculum decision makers. School Science & Mathematics, 80(1), 43-48.

Talton, E.L., & Simpson, R.D. (1987). Relationships of attitude toward classroom environment with attitude toward and achievement in science among tenth grade biology students. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 24(6), 507-525.

Editors' Note: ENVISION is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), award number 9819439-ESI. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dan Shepardson, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, 100 N. University St.. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2098.

Electronic mail may be sent via Internet to dshep@purdue.edu

Bryan Wee, Juli Fast, Dan Shepardson, & Jon Harbor

Purdue University

William Boone

Indiana University

Copyright School Science and Mathematics Association, Incorporated Mar 2004

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