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Alex H. Johnstone
University of Glasgow
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A. H. Johnstone a; F. F. Al-Naeme a
a
Centre for Science Education, University of Glasgow, UK
To cite this Article Johnstone, A. H. and Al-Naeme, F. F.(1995) 'Filling a curriculum gap in chemistry', International
Introduction
For many years educationists have been pointing out that there are diverse learning
styles and motivations (Kempa 1990) among learners which should be taken into
account when designing curricula or courses or individual lessons. There have been
some attempts to address this by means of individualized learning but, in general,
groups of learners are taught as if they were homogeneous samples for processing.
Teachers know that their learners are not homogeneous, but pressures (largely
logistical in nature) drive them to use the same methods for all. Even so-called
'individualized learning' tends not to treat individuals in different ways, but treats
them individually in the same way.
Some years ago, after the introduction of Standard Grade Chemistry (Scottish
Certificate of Education 1988) into Scottish Secondary schools for \A 16-year-olds,
it occurred to the authors that a partial solution to the problem would be to ensure
that in the chemistry course there should be a blend of methodologies, some
combinations of which would appeal to each pupil.
Examination of the published syllabuses and support material revealed that
different activities were being recommended and their delivery was to be partly by
group teaching and partly by individualized learning. Traditional didactic teaching
was blended with set laboratory work and skills training, problem solving on paper
and discussion material about industrial and economic issues. There was a stated
intention to incorporate problem solving at the bench, but no clear plans were given
as to how this might be done.
It was to fill this gap that a development study was set up (Hadden 1991) to
produce a large number of workable bench problems (mini-projects) and to evaluate them. Following, but overlapping this development, a research programme was
set up to probe the underlying educational and psychological factors (Johnstone and
Al-Naeme 1991) to ascertain whether the mini-projects were, in fact, catering
adequately for the range of learning and motivational styles of the pupils.
0950-0693/95 $1000 1995 Taylor & Francis Ltd.
220
RESEARCH REPORTS
221
course running smoothly, any large demand for time for an additional activity
would have been most unwelcome.
It was decided to design the mini-projects to fit the natural gaps which appear
in any individualized learning programme: e.g., the gaps between modules; the
need to occupy fast learners while slower ones catch up and the spaces near the end
of a teaching period.
They were written to fill periods of about half an hour and were designed to
support the existing curriculum with several projects for each syllabus section so
that teachers could allocate different problems to different pairs of pupils. These
have since been published as a book of 100 mini-projects (Hadden 1991) which fit
most chemistry courses for 1416-year-olds.
A typical page is shown (figure 1) to illustrate the layout and the procedures.
Pupils are first asked to read the problem carefully. They then produce a plan which
has to be approved by the teacher for safety. Teachers should allow any safe plan
to proceed since the pupils will find out by their mistakes if they have taken an
unproductive route and then think again.
After approval, or rethink if necessary, pupils tackle the problem and record
their method and conclusions on the reverse of the sheet. If a pair of pupils is not
confident enough to start planning, the teacher is there to encourage; if they have
no idea how to start the teacher can give hints.
The weakest pupils may need much help, but it is felt that all pupils should be
enabled to succeed in the end. After some experience of a few mini-projects, even
the weakest of pupils appear to make some attempts to help themselves and cease
to be completely dependent on their teachers; in fact hesitancy may not be the result
of inability only, but may result from abler pupils being asked to think for themselves for the first time in a practical situation.
The assessment of mini-projects
Since mini-projects were not part of the official course, no formal assessment was
envisaged for them, but for the purpose of this research some form of scoring was
necessary to use in later correlations with other factors which might contribute to
success in problem solving at the bench.
A scoring sheet was given to the observers (teachers and researchers) for making
this research assessment. It is not suggested that this should necessarily be the
assessment system to be used when problem solving at the bench is undertaken in
due course in Standard Grade (Al-Naeme 1991).
The sheets were designed to permit rapid observation and recording which
could be converted later into scores. An example of a sheet is shown in figure 2. The
six questions cover four aspects: getting started, the method, the result and report,
and the difficulty as perceived by the teacher.
In most schools the work was done with pairs of pupils and this raised a problem
for assessment, although problem solving in groups is highly desirable in practice.
For research purposes each pupil was judged separately on questions 1, 2 and 3
before the pair came together to make final plans for procedure. Question 4 had to
apply to both pupils together, but their independent reports were assessed in
question 5.
The principle of the assessment was to give each pupil a 'starter' of five points
to which others could be added (or subtracted) depending on performance. The
222
RESEARCH REPORTS
Name:
Class:
Project: 45
1. The problem: You have to find the best method for getting the coin out of the ice cube
without:
(a) breaking the ice;
(b) using a flame or hot plate;
(c) using your own body heat.
You have also to describe the best method you find.
(If you have no ideas for a plan after you have thought as hard as you can, ask your teacher
for some help.)
3. Your apparatus:
Think carefully about the apparatus you think you will need to carry out your plan as an
experiment. Now write down here a list of the apparatus you think you will need:
Note: You may use any textbooks, data books or chemistry notes you think might help you.
4. Show your plan and your list of apparatus to your teacher before you start any
experiments.
(Your teacher will provide you with the apparatus.)
Now start your experiments. Use the other side of this page to write up your method,
observations, results and conclusions. (You should use diagrams or tables to illustrate your
results where possible.)
223
YES
NO
Q2: If NO,
1-1
Exp.
Fact.
r-3
Enco.
YES
NO
YES
NO
Q4: Did the pupil need help again during his/her work?
F1
Exp.
Fact.
F2
F3
Enco.
YES
NO
Fair
Difficult
maximum score was 15 and the minimum zero. The quality of the plan, the
execution of the method and the reporting of results all obtained positive scores (or
zero), while assistance from the teacher 'cost' points depending on the quality and
frequency of such help. The scoring system is shown on the version of the score
sheet shown in figure 3. The scores for question 6 were a bonus given by teachers
for their estimate of the intrinsic difficulty of the problem in relation to what they
perceived as the state of knowledge and experience of their pupils.
Requests for help were classified in three categories, Experimental, Factual and
Encouraging. In question 2, at the critical planning stage, the deductions were more
'severe' than at the less critical stage in question 4 when the work was nearing its
conclusion.
These judgements were the final outcome of several different trial scoring
systems and were the ones which gave the most reliable results. The pupils were not
informed of the scoring scheme because they were not being assessed in any official
sense. The results were for research purposes only and were useful for later correlations with factors such as convergence and divergence, field-dependence and
independence, and motivational traits.
224
RESEARCH REPORTS
Not bad Weak
+2
+1
YES
NO
Wronc
0
Q2:HNO,
Exp.
Fact.
Enco.
F1
F2
F3
-1
-1
-0-5
F1
F2
F3
-0-5
-0-5
-0-5
+1
YES
NO
YES
NO
Q4: Did the pupil need help again during his/her work?
Exp.
Fact.
Enco.
Easy
YES
NO
Fair
Difficult
+ 1
+2
225
with scores greater than half of one standard deviation above the mean (fieldindependent); those between plus or minus half a standard deviation round the
mean (field-intermediate) and those whose scores were less than a half of one
standard deviation below the mean (field-dependent). The test used was one
devised and calibrated by El-Banna (1987) from Witkin's original test materials
(1974, 1978) using hidden figures.
Of the sample of 217 (1415-year-olds), 63 were categorized field-dependent, 73
field-intermediate and 81 field-independent.
226
RESEARCH REPORTS
NAME:
INSTRUCTIONS: Please look at each row and decide which DNE urthe pupils has an opinion most like
your own. Then enter the name of that pupil in the blank space in the last column.
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228
RESEARCH REPORTS
Distribution
(%)
Achiever
Conscientious
Curious
Social
Uncategorized
5
37
15
27
16
Groups
Achiever
Conscientious
Curious
Social
No pattern
Field-dependent
Field-independent
2
4
52
30
10
16
25
33
11
17
Achiever
Conscientious
Curious
Social
No pattern
Convergent
Divergent
en oo
41
30
12
18
22
31
23
13
As was pointed out earlier, the convergence/divergence factor and the fielddependent/field-independent factor were substantially independent, but that
there was a small tendency for divergent pupils to be field-independent and for
convergent pupils to be field-dependent. If we now consider the interaction
between motivational and the other two factors, some patterns begin to emerge
(tables 2 and 3).
Conscientious pupils seem to have a tendency to be field-dependent and convergent, while social and curious pupils tend to be field-independent and divergent.
Achiever numbers are low, but they also tend towards divergence and fieldindependence.
Prediction of success in mini-projects
Earlier in this paper, a scoring system for the assessment of mini-projects was
set out and this was used to test the hypotheses which were raised on the basis of
the psychological measurements. It might be predicted that pupils who were fieldindependent and divergent in their thinking would be better equipped to tackle
tasks which demanded some creative problem-solving ability, some insights and
229
F.IND.
9.5
10.1
CON. - ^
^
7.5
DIV.
8.8
F.D.
Figure 5. Distribution of m e a n scores (out of 15) on mini-projects across
psychological factors.
Table 4. M e a n scores (out of 15) on mini-projects for e a c h motivational
group.
Motivational
group
Mean score
(115)
Achiever
Conscientious
Curious
11-5
8-2
106
Social
9.1
some willingness to be unconventional. Figure 5 shows the mean scores on miniprojects for four categories.
Scores on the field-independent side were superior to those on the field-dependent side; scores on the divergent side were better than those on the convergent
side. Of these two factors the field-dependent/field-independent was the stronger.
The highest scores were in fact attained by the field-independent/divergent pupils
and the lowest by the field-dependent/convergent pupils, suggesting that the
positive factors are field-independence and divergence.
The motivational grouping might suggest that the highest mean scores on miniprojects will be obtained by the curious and the achievers with lower scores for the
conscientious and perhaps the social. Table 4 shows the mean score pattern which
bears out that suggestion.
Table 5 illustrates the influence of the various factors on pupils' performance on
mini-projects. Predicted scores on mini-projects would be highest when all three
factors were positive (three arrows to the right); followed by two positive and one
negative factors (two arrows to the right and one to the left); followed by one
positive and two negative factors (one arrow to the right and two to the left).
Weakest scores would be found where there were three negative factors (all arrows
to the left). Table 6 shows the actual results, but achievers have been omitted since
the numbers in each cell have become too small to have meaning.
The trends which emerge from this analysis are clear. The highest mean scores
were obtained by the curious, field-independent and divergent pupils and the
lowest scores by the conscientious, field-dependent, convergent pupils. In any
vertical column the scores for the curious were superior throughout. In any
230
RESEARCH REPORTS
Negative
Positive
Field-dependence
Field-independence
Convergence
Divergence
Achiever
Conscientious
Curious
Social
F.D.
F.Ind.
F.Ind.
Various groups of
and Div
and Con.
and Div.
and Con.
Mean scores of
consc. pupils
in mini-projects
80
6-6
10-2
Mean scores of
curious pupils
in mini-projects
105
8-6
11-4
108
Mean scores of
social pupils
in mini-projects
231
achievers had a chance to achieve in any situation. A lack of provision was noted for
the curious pupils and this was addressed by means of mini-projects.
It has been demonstrated that the mini-projects have indeed appealed to the
curious pupils to the greatest extent but that all groups have had a fair degree of
success. The authors believe that a curriculum gap in chemistry may now have been
filled but this leads to the wider consideration of the nature of other aspects of the
chemistry curriculum at all levels.
Although lip-service is paid to individual differences among learners, little is
done to allow for this. Pupils may be characterized as 'bright' or 'less gifted', but
these pupil labels may be as much a function of the learning and assessment
environment in which they find themselves as of some innate gift.
When schools were approached to participate in this research, certain pupils
were pointed out as being 'dull' or 'uncooperative' or 'unintelligent' with the
suggestion that they should be excluded from any work involving creativity. When
the researchers insisted on the inclusion of all pupils, they and the teachers were
pleasantly surprised to find many of these 'less able' pupils 'blossoming' when
presented with creative tasks to do at the bench. Given this change of environment,
the response of pupils changed, but not always for the better.
Some pupils who had been regarded as 'more able' appeared to be unhappy
about being exposed to creative demand and showed signs of insecurity and discomfort. Conscientious, convergent pupils in particular found the going hard and,
if the normal ambience of the chemistry class had been for creativity throughout,
these might have been rated as the less able.
Similar thinking must apply to all other aspects of the chemistry course and to
the assessment methods employed. Pupils who are provided with a learning and
assessment atmosphere which fits their learning and motivational styles are likely to
do well and the converse is equally probable.
In chemistry the potential exists for a wide variety of curricular experiences:
didactic teaching, self-paced work, worksheet-driven practical work, mini-projects,
problem solving on paper and at the bench, manual skills, human interest
discussion material, consumer science and much else besides. Unfortunately, this
range of possibilities is not fully used and there is a tendency to become locked into
a mixed-ability situation, managed by some form of individualized learning with
worksheets and assessed by fixed or limited response methods which reward
convergence. In this situation the field-dependent, convergent, conscientious pupil
is favoured and encouraged to remain in this style, whereas the field-independent,
divergent and curious pupil is likely to be disadvantaged or stifled into conformity.
The substance of this research has shown that a fairly modest change in learning
experience can help to meet the needs of a group of pupils who could easily be
neglected. It also indicates that there may be a need to take into account learning
and motivational styles when curricula are being designed, and not to allow them
to be driven solely by content and structure.
References
ADAR, L. (1969). A Theoretical Framework for the Study of Motivation in Education.
Jerusalem, School of Education, The Hebrew University (in Hebrew).
AL-NAEME, F. F. A. (1991). The influence of various learning styles on practical problemsolving in chemistry in Scottish secondary schools. PhD Thesis, University of
Glasgow.
232
EL-BANNA,
Correspondence
Prof. A. H. Johnstone, Centre for Science Education, Department of Chemistry, University
of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland.