Melina Furman

Is That Even Checkable? An Experimental Study in Identifying Checkable Statements in Political Discourse

The first step in journalistic fact-checking of political discourse is identifying whether statements contain “checkable facts” (i.e., not opinions). This randomized controlled experiment investigated how different demographic factors (age, gender, education, profession, and political affiliation) are associated with the ability to discern if statements contained checkable or noncheckable facts, as well as what impact training in identifying checkable facts can have on overall outcomes. A total of 3,357 participants identified checkable and noncheckable statements from a fictional political speech extract containing eight statements. Overall, participants were able to correctly identify an average of 69% of statements. Specific demographic factors (being male, young, and university educated) were positively associated with increased performance as well as working in professions that commonly analyze data, such as research. Participating in a short training session significantly increased participants’ performance. Initial political affiliation slightly reduces the ability to assess whether statements made by named politicians contained checkable facts.

CATEGORIZACIÓN DE PREGUNTAS FORMULADAS ANTES Y DESPUÉS DE LA ENSEÑANZA POR INDAGACIÓN

Posing research questions is the central ability of the scientific thought. This article examines the ability of sixth grade children to pose researchable questions before and after a three months’ work on a didactic sequence based on the inquiry school model. According to their purpose, the questions asked by children, after reading a text, were classified into researchable questions -susceptible to be empirically explored-, questions about a cause, and questions on a piece of data. The results show that the amount and the type of questions the students were able to pose during the intervention changed, from most of questions on data or information, to most of researchable questions, subsequently, the importance of designing teaching approaches to foster this ability was proved.

Impact of an inquiry unit on grade 4 students’ science learning

ABSTRACT This paper concerns the identification of teaching strategies that enhance the development of 4th grade students’ experimental design skills at a public primary school in Argentina. Students’ performance in the design of relevant experiments was evaluated before and after an eight-week intervention compared to a control group, as well as the persistence of this learning after eight months. The study involved a quasi-experimental longitudinal study with pre-test/post-test/delayed post-test measures, complemented with semi-structured interviews with randomly selected students. Our findings showed improvement in the experimental design skills as well as its sustainability among students working with the inquiry-based sequence. After the intervention, students were able to establish valid comparisons, propose pertinent designs and identify variables that should remain constant. Contrarily, students in the control group showed no improvement and continued to solve the posed problems based on prior beliefs. In summary, this paper shows evidence that implementing inquiry-based units involving problems set in cross-domain everyday situations that combine independent student work with teacher guidance significantly improves the development of scientific skills in real classroom contexts.

International Response for Part V: Equity and Diversity in Science Education and Academia: A South American Perspective

When seeking an international perspective, we often look at those countries where students “do well” (at least according to international exams) in science. Something apparently works in all those “successful” countries, and the challenge is to find out what works and why, in an attempt to replicate it at home. Yet, if we want to extend the conversation to other contexts and other issues, a question remains to be asked: what can we learn from other types of perspectives? What can the analysis of experiences from countries usually considered to be at the margins bring to the table when we inquire about science education in the USA? In this commentary, I provide such an international perspective: a South American vision, particularly a view from the Argentine context, with the hope of building together deeper understandings of the issues we share as a science education community of practice.

The use of questions in early years science: a case study in Argentine preschools

ABSTRACT The use of effective questions is an essential attribute of successful early years science teaching. In this case study, we analyse the questions and dialogues generated by four preschool teachers from two schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of contrasting socioeconomic contexts (one privileged and one underprivileged). We looked at the implementation of two identical enquiry-based science curricular units after a two-month professional development programme. We found that teachers at the more privileged school asked an average of 22% more productive questions, i.e. those aligned with lesson goals (Martens, M. L. 1999. “Productive questions: Tools for supporting constructivist learning.” Science and Children 36 (8): 24–53. http://search.proquest.com/openview/0fbd77105695538253f998eae1d38ff4/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=41736). There were also significant differences between the types of questions asked, with teachers from the lower socioeconomic status school asking more ‘attention-focussing’ and fewer ‘evaluation’ questions. Qualitative analysis of the teacher-student dialogues showed that students from the privileged school were exposed to higher-quality learning experiences, despite teachers apparently performing the same activities with the same materials. Our findings highlight the importance of focussing early years science professional development efforts on questioning practices, especially for those teachers working in underprivileged settings, to foster meaningful learning opportunities for all children.

Tablets as an educational tool for enhancing preschool science

ABSTRACT Information communication technologies (ICT) is increasingly being introduced in the preschool level, but questions have been raised regarding its potential to develop content knowledge or specific skills. This quasi-experimental study looked into the impact that hand-held tablets can have on science learning outcomes in five-year-olds. Four classes from two preschool institutions in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were selected for a six-week intervention. All four classes received training and an inquiry-based science teaching sequence, with one group from each institution also receiving tablets and specific guidance on how to incorporate them into their science lessons. Post-intervention test results showed significant improvements in science outcomes for all students, but no significant difference between the tablet-enhanced classrooms and those taught without ICT. Challenges and opportunities are discussed with regard to including tablets for teaching science at the preschool level.

From inception to implementation: an Argentine case study of teachers enacting early years inquiry-based science

Abstract This study aimed to understand the process of implementing an early years inquiry-based science unit, focusing on the challenges teachers faced. A two-month professional development programme was implemented in two preschool classrooms. Two teachers with no inquiry-based science experience were provided with structured curriculum units and weekly pedagogical coach. Teachers observed coach-led model lessons (which were filmed and used during subsequent training) before implementing four 30-min lessons. Lessons and teacher interviews post-programme were filmed and their verbatim transcriptions analysed. Overall, teachers executed most basic elements from the units, providing students with opportunities to engage in scientific explorations. However, they struggled to use the activities for the collective construction of knowledge and development of scientific skills. Analysis of student–teacher dialogues shows that teachers rarely used student inputs to articulate prior knowledge with new concepts or to inform teaching, sometimes constructing misleading ideas about the nature of science as a result.

LA EVALUACIÓN EN LA FORMACIÓN DE LOS PROFESORES DE CIENCIAS

This research analyzes the final evaluations of the major in Biology Teaching in an institution in northeastern Argentina. The evaluation circumstances were observed, and the professors were subsequently interviewed. The questions formulated by the professors in the test were analyzed according to the objective of their speech and the dimension of the evaluated sciences, by using the categories of science as a product (set of knowledge) and as a process (ways to know). 78% of the questions correspond to the category of science as a product compared to 22% as a process. Most of the formulated questions aimed to lowcomplex cognitive processes such as the enunciation of definitions or descriptions, and simple scientific skills as classifying. These results contradict professors’ concern about their students’ low level of reading comprehension and their stated objective of ‘teaching them to think’. This paper brings evidences as for the imperative need of strengthening the work with teacher trainers in learning evaluation aspects.

Qué ciencia estamos enseñando en escuelas de contextos de pobreza

In this research, elementary level (4th and 6th grade) students’ performance in scientific competence is analyzed. The sample is made up of 3,000 children whose schools belong to Bicentennial Schools –an improvement program centered on schools located in poverty contexts of six Argentinean provinces. At the beginning of the program, special importance was given to a set of scientific competences recognized as teaching objectives for elementary level education, based on written evaluations in which children had to test their capacity to classify and predict, as well as explaining their reasoning, plan an experiment in order to answer an investigative question, analyze data and design measurement instruments, and so on. The results show a startling situation since a large percentage of children doesn’t master the competences tested, especially the complex ones, obtaining a large percentage of omitted answers. These data provide new evidence on the pressing need for a change in science teaching in schools located in poverty contexts and pose new questions about teaching training and the improvement actions required to cope with this problem.