Belief, Knowledge, and Science Education Southerland, Sherry A.; Sinatra, Gale M.; Matthews, Michael R.
Educational psychology review,
12/2001, Letnik:
13, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Epistemological questions about the nature of knowledge and belief underlie many of the controversial issues fundamental to research and practice in science teaching and learning. In an effort to ...bring some clarity to questions of knowledge and belief embedded within science education research and teaching, we first describe the distinctions drawn between knowledge and belief in both philosophy and educational psychology, each of which have shaped the various definitions employed within science education. This discussion is followed by an examination of the distinctions drawn between knowledge and belief employed by three groups of science educators: the traditional distinctions of the foundationalists that are co-opted by researchers focusing on teacher thinking/cognition, the nonfoundational epistemology of the fallibilists and the evolution educators working from this framework, and the radical constructivists who react to and attempt to move past the limitations of these other positions. In this analysis, we explicate the different ways in which knowledge and belief are understood and operationalized in a broad spectrum of research, we describe the theoretical and philosophical assumptions underlying these approaches, and we explore the important areas of contention (both theoretical and empirical) surrounding each of these distinctions.
This work deals with the design and implementation of soft sensors for a Sulfur Recovery Unit (SRU) in a refinery. Soft sensors are mathematical models able to emulate the behavior of existing ...sensors on the basis of available measurements. In this application, they are used when sensors are taken off for maintenance. The measurements considered in this work are very important for the environmental impact of the refinery, as they regard pollutant acid gas emissions. Four strategies have been implemented and compared: Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLP) and Radial Basis Function neural networks, Neuro-Fuzzy networks and nonlinear Least-Squares (LSQ) fitting. The best performance is given by MLP neural networks and nonlinear LSQ, all of them implementing Nonlinear Moving Average models. The best soft sensors have been installed on the on-line distributed control systems of the refinery and on-line performance is highly satisfactory.
Argument and conceptual engagement Nussbaum, E.Michael; Sinatra, Gale M
Contemporary educational psychology,
07/2003, Letnik:
28, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Dole and Sinatra (1998) have argued that promoting the level of engagement necessary to facilitate conceptual change could be achieved by “weighing issues and arguments” (p. 121). The present study ...sought to test the efficacy of a conceptual change intervention based on argumentation. Participants who were asked to argue in favor of an alternative explanation of a physics problem (the scientific explanation) were more likely to show improved reasoning on that problem than control participants who were asked to solve the problem without argumentation. We argue that this intervention is consistent with other pedagogical techniques that promote conceptual change (such as conducting experiments and benchmark lessons,
diSessa & Minstrell, 1998, or generating self-explanations,
Chi, 2000), in that it fosters high engagement and opportunities to juxtapose ideas, with the added advantage of ease of implementation and significant effects with little investment of instructional time.
Isoniazid (INH) therapy for tuberculosis carries a known risk for hepatoxicity, and leads to hepatic failure in a small subset of patients. This incidence has been described for adults, but is ...uncertain in children. Our aim was to estimate the incidence of pediatric referrals for INH-related liver failure, and to describe the characteristics and outcomes of these patients.
The 84 U.S. centers performing pediatric liver transplants between 1987 and 1997 were surveyed regarding patients with INH-induced liver failure. Additional transplant statistics were obtained from the United Network for Organ Sharing. Estimates of the number of children taking preventive INH were derived from a nationwide public health database.
Twenty cases of INH-related liver failure were found during a 10-year period. Four patients (20%) recovered spontaneously; 10 (50%) underwent orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT), while six (30%) died awaiting OLT. Mean age at presentation was 9.8 years (range 1.3-17). Mean length of INH therapy was 3.3 months (range 0.5-9). Notably, five patients seen for symptoms of hepatitis were initially told not to stop treatment. INH-associated liver failure accounted for 0.2% (8 of 4679) of all pediatric OLTs, and 14% (8/56) of transplants for drug hepatoxicity. The estimated incidence of liver failure was up to 3.2/100,000 for children on prophylactic INH.
While INH-associated liver failure in children is rare, discontinuation at the onset of symptoms does not assure recovery. This indicates a need for increased awareness of hepatotoxicity risk, expanded biochemical monitoring for children receiving INH, and prompt withdrawal in symptomatic patients.
Alexander and her colleagues proposed
teaching as persuasion as a guiding metaphor for conceptual change pedagogy (
Alexander, Fives, Buehl, & Mulhern, 2002). However, there is reason to suspect that ...the term persuasion can have negative connotations for some individuals (
Dole & Sinatra, 1999;
Murphy, 2001). Therefore, we examined 182 primarily preservice teachers’ views of teaching as persuasion, and related those views to their openness/resistance to new ideas as measured by selected epistemological belief scales and dispositional measures. Consistent with our hypotheses, our results indicated that teacher candidates who believed that knowledge evolves, that beliefs can be revised, and that learning is a process of constructing knowledge were more open to persuasive teaching. Our findings provide support for
Murphy’s (2001) view of persuasion and suggest further that the teaching as persuasion metaphor would be more successful embedded in an instructional context designed to broaden teachers’ epistemological worldviews.
The purpose of the present study was to use a cognitive processing perspective to revise fifth-grade social studies texts, to describe those revisions, and to demonstrate their effects empirically. ...Four segments of text from a U. S. textbook about the period leading to the American Revolution and their revised counterparts were presented to 85 fourth- and fifth-grade students. Students were presented with the text materials in individual sessions with an examiner and were asked to recall what they had read and to answer questions on the material. Students who read the revised text recalled more material and answered more questions correctly than students who read the original text. Differences in understanding between the two groups were also captured in qualitative analyses of recall protocols and question responses related to specific ideas in the text. Overall, the effects of the revisions demonstrate that a text-processing approach to creating comprehensible text is a viable one. Furthermore, the description of revision goes beyond how revisions have been described in past research by exposing the reasoning underlying the identification of problems and the changes made. /// French Le but de la présente recherche était d'appliquer la perspective des modèles cognitifs de traitement des textes à la revision de textes extraits de manuels scolaires en sciences humaines du niveau de cinquième année primaire. La recherche a porté sur quatre extraits d'un livre d'histoire traitant de la période qui a conduit à la révolution américaine. Les versions originales des quatre textes et les versions revisées ont été présentées à 85 élèves de quatrième et de cinquième année au cours de sessions individuelles; les sujets devaient produire un rappel des textes et répondre à des questions de compréhension. Les élèves qui ont lu les versions revisées ont rappelé davantage d'informations et ont répondu à davantage de questions que les sujets qui ont lu les versions originales. Des analyses qualitatives appliquées à la fois sur les rappels et sur les réponses aux questions de compréhension ont permis de mieux saisir les différences de compréhension. En général, les résultats ont confirmé l'intérêt d'appliquer un modèle de traitement cognitif des textes pour améliorer la compréhensibilité des textes. La présente recherche décrit explicitement le rationel qui motive les améliorations apportées, la façon d'identifier les problèmes et la nature des changements apportés. /// Spanish El propósito del presente estudio fue usar una perspectiva del procesamiento cognitivo para revisar los textos de quinto grado de estudios sociales, describir esas revisiones, y demostrar sus efectos empíricamente. Cuatro segmentos de textos de un libro de texto acerca del periodo anterior a la Revolución norteamericana fueron revisados. Se presentaron los segmentos originales y las versiones revisadas a 85 estudiantes de cuarto y quinto grados en sesiones individuales; se pidió a los estudiantes que recordaran lo que habían leído y que contestaran preguntas sobre el material. Los estudiantes que leyeron el texto revisado recordaron más material y contestaron más preguntas correctamente que los estudiantes que leyeron el texto original. También se identificaron diferencias en la comprensión en los dos grupos en análisis cualitativos de protocolos de recuerdo y respuestas a preguntas relacionadas con ideas específicas en el texto. En general, los efectos de las revisiones demostraron que un acercamiento de procesamiento de texto para crear un texto comprensivo es una aproximación viable. La investigación actual describe explícitamente la razón para cada revisión hecha-cómo se identificó cada problema, y qué cambios fueron hechos para enfrentar ese problema. /// German Zweck dieser studie war es, Forschungsergebnisse im Bereich der kognitiven Verarbeitung anzuwenden, um landeskundliche Texte des fünften Schuljahres zu revidieren, diese Bearbeitungen zu beschreiben und deren Wirkungen empirisch nachzuweisen. Aus einem amerikanischen Lehrbuch wurden dazu vier Textabschnitte, die die Zeit vor der Amerikanischen Revolution behandelten, revidiert. Die Originalabschnitte und die revidierten Fassungen wurden 85 Schülern des 4. und 5. Schuljahres vorgelegt. Beide Male wurden die Abschnitte im Einzelunterricht präsentiert und die Schüler dazu aufgefordert, das Gelesene nachzuerzählen und Fragen zum Material zu beantworten. Die Schüler, die den revidierten Text gelesen hatten, konnten mehr Informationen nacherzählen und mehr Fragen richtig beantworten als die Schüler, die den Originaltext gelesen hatten. Die Unterschiede im Verständnis zwischen den beiden Gruppen wurden außerdem anhand von qualitativen Auswertungen der Nacherzählungen und Antworten auf die Testfragen, die sich auf bestimmte Ideen des Textes bezogen, festgehalten. Im ganzen zeigen die Auswirkungen der Revisionen, daß ein textverarbeitendes Verfahren beim Aufstellen von Verständnistexten sinnvoll ist. In der vorliegenden Studie werden die Grundprinzipien jeder einzelnen Revidierung besprochen: wie jedes einzelne Problem identifiziert wurde und welche Anderungen zur Behebung des jeweiligen Problems in Angriff genommen wurden.
If it looks like a dog Sinatra, Anne M.; Sims, Valerie K.; Chin, Matthew G. ...
Interaction Studies,
01/2012, Letnik:
13, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This study was designed to compare the natural free form communication that takes place when a person interacts with robotic entities versus live animals. One hundred and eleven participants ...interacted with one of four entities: an AIBO robotic dog, Legobot, Dog or Cat. It was found that participants tended to rate the Dog as more capable than the other entities, and often spoke to it more than the robotic entities. However, participants were not positively biased toward live entities, as the Cat often was thought of and spoken to similarly to the AIBO robot. Results are consistent with a model in which both appearance and interactivity lead to the development of beliefs about a live or robotic entity in an interaction. Keywords: Human-robot interaction; human-animal interaction; AIBO; free form communication; attributions; human-entity interaction
