Impact of the Science and Technology for Children curriculum in the Oshkosh area school district

School Science and Mathematics, Mar 2002 by Lattery, Mark Joseph, Lemberger, John, Herzog, Barbara

3. The research instructors were overqualified for the study. Given the training and background of the research instructors, one may question whether the control group units were taught too well and, therefore, did not reflect typical teaching in the district.

This objection is addressed by the following argument: Modern instructional strategies (like those implied by the STC units) place heavy demands on the teacher in terms of context knowledge (one cannot simply lean on the textbook), facilitating collaborative small-group activities, eliciting and addressing students' conceptual difficulties, encouraging open-ended exploration, and so on. Hence, novice teachers, still refining basic classroom-management skills, may actually do better with more traditional approaches (like those implied by the control units-at least at first. With proper training and experience, modern approaches to science instruction (e.g., those associated with "constructivism") eventually outrun traditional approaches (Gabel, 1994). Therefore, this study, conducted with highly qualified teachers, increases the likelihood of measuring a difference in favor of the STC units, if one exists. (In any case, one is impressed that the instructors were able to develop control units in less than two short weeks that achieved the same gains as the heavily supported STC units; this suggests the need to incorporate experienced teachers more fully in local course development.)

4. The tests were not fair. Perhaps the test instruments did not properly or fairly survey the instructional content ofthe units; e.g., the test items favored control-- unit content, examples, and wording.

Three steps were taken to reduce this possibility. First, test construction was guided by the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) without knowledge of the specific content of the STC or control group units. A post hoc analysis of test content showed no bias toward the control units. Second, items were selected to measure the most essential concepts of the content domain (e.g., "Does boxA balance box B?" and "Which circuit lights the bulb?"). Third, in subject matter areas given to a wider variety of questions (weather, Grade 1), or not commonly taught in elementary school (motion and design, Grade 3), STC-tailored items were included and studied independently. An analysis of these items did not alter the conclusions of the study.

Conclusions

Having addressed these objections, we conclude that the adoption of the STC curriculum in the OASD will result in little or no gains on standard pencil-and-paper assessments (e.g., standardized tests) and potentially a slight decrease in student attitudes toward science. While improved teacher training may lead to higher learning gains, it is unclear that such training would lead to a significant gain differential.

The above conclusion is based on a study of more than 300 students, 16 classrooms, four grade levels, and four physical science units. The effect of repeated exposure to STC units across multiple grade levels, with novice teachers, or in conjunction with amore extensive teacher-training program, is not addressed.