Bhaw N, Kriek J, Lemmer M
Department of Physics, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, University of South Africa, South Africa.
School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa.
Heliyon. 2023 Jun 22;9(7):e17349. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17349. eCollection 2023 Jul.
Improving scientific reasoning enables students to navigate the challenges of learning science. Teachers use Lawson's classroom test of scientific reasoning (LCTSR) to measure scientific reasoning. The LCTSR is a two-tiered assessment that uses content-based questions and explanation statements. Researchers have found that if a student answers a knowledge-based question correctly but selects an incorrect explanation statement, there may be an element of guessing or an established misconception. Misconceptions are beliefs that students hold that are not based on scientific evidence. The present study added a confidence variable to the LCTSR, which measures how confident students regarded their responses in both tiers. Selecting a correct response to a knowledge-based question while providing an incorrect explanation and having a high confidence rating indicates an established misconception. The confidence variable is, therefore, a measure of an established scientific misconception and is the basis of the present study. The present study analyzed the responses of 71 first-year university students enrolled in an introductory physics course. The LCTSR results indicate that students performed the best in the conservation reasoning dimension and the worst in the proportional reasoning dimension. In all scientific reasoning dimensions, more than half the students chose the incorrect explanation for each context question. Students' confidence responses surpassed their performance in three of the 14 LCTSR items. The low frequency of correct answers and the statistically significant correlation between LCTSR items and confidence suggest possible misconceptions in students' scientific reasoning skills.
提高科学推理能力能帮助学生应对科学学习中的挑战。教师使用劳森科学推理课堂测试（LCTSR）来衡量科学推理能力。LCTSR是一种两级评估，使用基于内容的问题和解释陈述。研究人员发现，如果学生正确回答了基于知识的问题，但选择了错误的解释陈述，可能存在猜测因素或既定的误解。误解是学生所持有的并非基于科学证据的信念。本研究在LCTSR中增加了一个信心变量，该变量衡量学生对其在两个层级中的回答的自信程度。在对基于知识的问题选择正确答案的同时提供错误解释并具有高信心评级，表明存在既定的误解。因此，信心变量是既定科学误解的一种衡量标准，也是本研究的基础。本研究分析了71名参加基础物理课程的大学一年级学生的回答。LCTSR结果表明，学生在守恒推理维度表现最佳，在比例推理维度表现最差。在所有科学推理维度中，超过一半的学生对每个情境问题都选择了错误的解释。在LCTSR的14个项目中，有3个项目学生的信心回答超过了他们的表现。正确答案的低频率以及LCTSR项目与信心之间具有统计学意义的相关性表明学生的科学推理技能可能存在误解。
