UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
Faculty, Department
Faculty of Education Department of Teacher Education
Author
Kurronen, Esko Topias
Title
The influence of science education when adapted to development stage
Subject, Level, Month and year, Number of pages
Education, M.A.Thesis, April 1991, 71p. (16 app.)
Abstract
The purpose of the research was to find out how tasks adapted to a pupil's development level affect learning results. The concept is that there are too few tasks in school that develop a pupil's thinking and that the pupil's development level isn't taken adequately into consideration when planning lessons.
The research problem was to find out if pupils with tasks that were adapted to their development level would succeed better at knowledge-reasoning-inquiry tasks than students that were given so-called normal-level tasks. The effect was supposed to be seen a month after the test was taken.
Material was collected at the Heureka Science Centre in autumn 1989. Seventy one, fifth-graders from a Helsinki elementary school were chosen as test subjects. In addition to the exhibition questions and subsequent inquiry, a development level test based on Piaget's work was given to the pupils. These results were also compared with the results of Goodenough-Harris drawing development level test.
The reliability of the subsequent inquiry was examined with the assistance of factor analysis and Cronbach's alfa coefficients. The argument section of the test was found to be more dependable than the multiple-choice part of the test.
The results of the subsequent inquiry show that the students who performed a task that was adapted to their development level succeeded better than the others, especially in the reasoning part where at the lowest risk level significant differences between the groups were found and were statistically meaningful. In the multiple-choice part, the differences were minor. It was also found that students who were at a lower level than that of the development level task didn't benefit from the test.
The conclusion was: adapting a task to development level was successful. However, the long-term effects of this type of test should be followed up with the help of a project that would include normal school teaching. Furthermore, tests should be developed that would improve the thinking of students at different levels. These could be subjects for possible continued research.
Keywords
Piaget, curriculum analysis, development of thinking, developing tasks, science teaching
Where deposited
The Library of the Faculty of Education (also available at Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre)
