UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
Faculty, Department
Faculty of Education Department of Teacher Education
Author
Voutilainen, Tarja Hannele
Title
pH Deduction Task at Heureka. Developing and Evaluating a Task Requiring Logical Reasoning.
Subject
Abstract
Month and year
December 1989
Level
Education M.A.Thesis
Number of pages
34 p. (19 app.)
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to develop a reasoning task relating to acidification. The starting point of the study was that pedagogics still contain few tasks requiring reasoning despite the obvious need for such tasks. The aim was to find out how the developed reasoning task works and does a task requiring logical reasoning have a connection to a pendulum task measuring the thinking level. No assumptions concerning gender were made.
The test subjects of the study were 27 students in the fifth grade of a lower level of comprehensive school located in the greater Helsinki area. The students carried out both the reasoning task and the pendulum task measuring the thinking level.
The reasoning task is divided into two parts: a deduction and justification task forming the combined task. The tasks were internally consistent, with Cronbach-alpha values 0.72, 0.89 and 0.82. The section analyses showed that the tasks were very homogenous. Two sections were different from the rest due to an error in the task.
The results showed a feeble connection between the pendulum and reasoning task. Differences between genders were seen in the pH reasoning task, girls performing better in the different sections of the pH task. No differences between girls and boys were found in the pendulum task measuring thinking levels.
The conclusion was that a task requiring logical reasoning could be constructed and that the pupils like such tasks. However, further research would be beneficial to, for example, find out more about the possible gender differences. The technical weaknesses of the pH deduction task were easy to correct.
Key words
Piaget, pH, problem-based learning, deduction, task-reliability, science centre education
Where deposited
The Library of the Faculty of Education (also available at Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre)
