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Student goal orientation in learning inquiry skills with modifiable software advisors
Author(s) -
Shimoda Todd A.,
White Barbara Y.,
Frederiksen John R.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
science education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Book series
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.209
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1098-237X
pISSN - 0036-8326
ISBN - 0-599-71340-2
DOI - 10.1002/sce.10003
Subject(s) - competence (human resources) , psychology , task (project management) , goal orientation , mathematics education , agency (philosophy) , advice (programming) , orientation (vector space) , computer science , social psychology , engineering , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , systems engineering , epistemology , programming language
A computer support environment (SCI‐WISE) for learning and doing science inquiry projects was designed. SCI‐WISE incorporates software advisors that give general advice about a skill such as hypothesizing. By giving general advice (rather than step‐by‐step procedures), the system is intended to help students conduct experiments that are more epistemologically authentic. Also, students using SCI‐WISE can select the type of advice the advisors give and when they give advice, as well as modify the advisors' knowledge bases. The system is based partly on a theoretical framework of levels of agency and goal orientation. This framework assumes that giving students higher levels of agency facilitates higher‐level goal orientations (such as mastery or knowledge building as opposed to task completion) that in turn produce higher levels of competence. A study of sixth grade science students was conducted. Students took a pretest questionnaire that measured their goal orientations for science projects and their inquiry skills. The students worked in pairs on an open‐ended inquiry project that requires complex reasoning about human memory. The students used one of two versions of SCI‐WISE—one that was modifiable and one that was not. After finishing the project, the students took a posttest questionnaire similar to the pretest, and evaluated the version of the system they used. The main results showed that (a) there was no correlation of goal orientation with grade point average, (b) knowledge‐oriented students using the modifiable version tended to rate SCI‐WISE more helpful than task‐oriented students, and (c) knowledge‐oriented pairs using the nonmodifiable version tended to have higher posttest inquiry skills scores than other pair types. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 86: 244–263, 2002; DOI 10.1002/sce.10003