Transcript Data collection outside and inside the classroom: Personal

Using Personal Meaning
Mapping to gather data on
school visits to science
centres
Anthony Lelliott
Marang Centre, Division of Maths and
Science Education, School of Education,
University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg
[email protected]
My study
 School visits to the Hartebeesthoek Radio
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Astronomy Observatory Visitors’ Centre
26 grade 7 and 8 students during school
visits.
Centre is didactic rather than free-choice.
Today’s presentation: learning rather than
affective and ‘fun’ aspects of visit.
Study did not use ‘technology’ to gather
data
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HartRAO
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Visitor Learning
 Contextual Model of Learning (Falk and
Dierking 2000)
 Human Constructivism (Novak &
collaborators)
 Combination of Ausubel’s theory of
meaningful learning with principles of
constructivism
 Conceptual Change theory revised by
Alsop and Watts (1997)
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Research Questions (selection)
 To what extent do students learn in the
process of a visit to a planetarium or the
visitors’ centre of an astronomical
observatory?
 What are students’ individual
experiences of the visit?
 How do students’ interests and prior
knowledge affect the learning experience
of a school visit?
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Methods
 Participants: 26 students from 4 private and
public schools in and around Johannesburg.
Teachers not involved in the study.
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Convenience sampling.
Data collection pre- during and post-visit.
Students completed Personal Meaning Maps.
Students interviewed on basis of what they had
written/drawn.
 Structured interview on aspects of astronomy.
 Observations & field notes during visits.
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Concept Mapping
 Students taught how to map their own
understanding of concepts, connecting
them appropriately (e.g. “x causes y”, “a is
part of b”).
 Used prior to, during and after a topic is
taught in the classroom
 Students’ maps often compared with an
expert map, and scored accordingly.
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Personal Meaning Mapping
 Prior to visit
 sheet of paper, phrase prompt. Visitor uses
ink colour 1
 Interview based on PMM. Ink colour 2.
 Post visit
 Original PMM returned to visitor.
Additions/deletions/ alterations. Ink colour 3.
 2nd interview. Ink colour 4.
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Personal Meaning Map
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Analysis of PMMs
 No ‘correct’ map to compare with. A
visitor’s PMM is their personal construct of
knowledge/understanding.
 Falk recommends analysis across four
dimensions of learning: extent, breadth,
depth, and mastery. Mainly quantitative.
 Used qualitatively in my study.
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Gugu – a student who apparently
‘learnt nothing’ from the visit
2.6-3.0
Postvisit
score
2.1-2.5
1.6-2.0
1.0-1.5
Gugu
1.0-1.5
1.6-2.0
2.1-2.5
Pre-visit score
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2.6-3.0
Gugu’s pre-visit PMM
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Some of Gugu’s pre-visit knowledge
 She listed the nine planets: Jupiter is the biggest planet
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and Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun.
She referred to stars as being “a lighting thing” created
by God, and that they are our “friends, family and
negbour” (sic).
When probed about her PMM, she confirmed that “God
created stars so that it can shine at night”.
Although she knew the term galaxy she was unable to
explain its meaning or its relationship to the term Milky
Way.
She also appeared to have differing ideas on aliens.
Having said she doesn’t believe in them in the structured
interview, she mentioned that some planets have them in
the PMM.
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Some of Gugu’s post-visit knowledge
 She “saw which bottle goes high and low” – a
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reference to the ‘Coke bottle rockets’ which
students used in an activity.
Additional planets to the nine named ones.
Additional facts about the nine planets.
Black spots on the Sun.
Various features of Mars: water, land, and orbit.
A description of the Moon landing and the time
taken to get there
A star bigger than the Sun.
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Implications of Gugu’s PMMs
 During the structured interview questioning, she
showed no improvement in her knowledge or
understanding.
 PMM showed that Gugu had acquired several
facts about astronomy which would not be
apparent during conventional pre-post test
methods.
 Out-of-school learning needs to use a variety of
methods (e.g. PMM, interviews, essays,
drawings) to determine the extent of learning.
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Use of PMMs in association with
field trips/visits
 An alternative to diagnostic testing prior to
starting a topic or going on a visit.
 Teachers could ask their students to complete a
PMM, in order to determine the prior knowledge
of each member of the class.
 A relatively brief analysis would enable a teacher
to tailor his or her teaching to the students’ prior
knowledge, as well as target individuals and
groups for enrichment or remediation.
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PMM in research - issues
 Where possible, spend adequate time in preliminary
analysis of the PMM prior to the initial interview.
 Similarly, spend adequate time in analysis of the PMM
before the second round of data collection, and prior to
the second interview.
 Experiment with the two alternatives of handing the
original PMM back to the participants for
addition/correction and asking them to complete a new
PMM.
 To what extent does the very act of completing a PMM
result in possible changes in people’s thinking about the
topic?
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