How long does it take? A study of student acquisition of scientific abilities

Most of the time, instructors of introductory physics limit their goals to students’ acquisition of basic concepts and end-of-the-chapter problem solving efficiency. They overlook the development of students’ science process abilities required for constructing scientific knowledge and approaching complex problems as scientists do. This goal is attainable and very valuable at the same time. This paper describes how learners improved their scientific abilities during the course of one semester and reports on the activities and facilitations that helped students in the process. We investigated how long it takes for novices to develop complex scientific abilities and whether the content and the context of the tasks affect the abilities that students demonstrate. We found that students need to conduct several cycles of scaffolded investigations to gain competence in the application of scientific abilities. Depending on the particular ability, a period of five to eight weeks of work is necessary to achieve it.

Figure 1

A sequence of exercises to develop the abilities (a) to distinguish between a hypothesis and a prediction and (b) to make a prediction of the outcome of the experiment based on the hypothesis.

Figure 2

Ability to identify experimental uncertainty. Laboratories 4 and 5 had two experiments each, which were scored separately. The arrow on the left shows activities related to this ability in laboratories and homework. The shaded bars represent the percentage of the students whose laboratory reports received missing and inadequate and need some improvement and adequate.

Figure 3

Ability to evaluate experimental uncertainty. Laboratories 4 and 5 had two experiments each, scored separately. The shaded bars represent the percentage of the students whose laboratory reports received scores shown at the top of the figure.

Figure 4

Ability to identify assumptions. Laboratories 4 and 5 had two experiments each, scored separately. The shaded bars represent the percentage of the students whose laboratory reports received scores shown at the top of the figure.

Figure 5

Ability to evaluate the effects of assumptions. Laboratories 4 and 5 had two experiments each, scored separately. The shaded bars represent the percentage of the students whose laboratory reports received scores shown at the top of the figure.

Figure 6

Ability to compare two values and to make a judgment about the results of the experiment. The shaded bars represent the percentage of the students whose laboratory reports received scores shown at the top of the figure.

Figure 7

Ability to distinguish between hypotheses and predictions. The dark shaded bar represents the percentage of the students whose laboratory reports received the score of 3 (adequate).