A student's scientific mind: a confirmatory factor analysis

Purpose – The research aimed to examine the construct validity of a scientific-mind measurement model for secondary school students in Bangkok and the factor loading values of scientific-mind indicators. Methodology – Stratified random sampling was used to select a sample of 500 Grade 8 students studying in a Bangkok school district during the 2016 academic year. Testing of scientificmind measurement was used as the research instrument and construct validity testing of the scientific-mind measurement model utilized second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was carried out with SPSS AMOS software Version 23.Findings - The testing of the scientific-mind measurement model for secondary school students in Bangkok was consistent with the empirical data. The scientific-mind factors consisted of two indicators, including scientific attitudes and attitudes towards science.Scientific attitudes were comprised of nine indicators. The indicator with the highest factor loading value was creatively working with other people. Attitudes towards science contained four indicators. The indicator with the highest factor loading value was science value awareness. Significance – The results revealed that teachers and educational administrators have the potential to use the study’s scientificmind factors in their approaches to course development, as well as in designing a manual for learning management. The study’s model can also help in measurement and evaluation of secondary school students’ progress in developing a better scientific mind

Getting their acts together: A coordinated systems approach to extended cognition

A cognitive system is a set of processes responsible for intelligent behaviour. This thesis is an attempt to answer the question: how can cognitive systems be demarcated; that is, what criterion can be used to decide where to draw the boundary of the system? This question is important because it is one way of couching the hypothesis of extended cognition – is it possible for cognitive systems to transcend the boundary of the brain or body of an organism? Such a criterion can be supplied by what is called in the literature a ‘mark of the cognitive’. The main task of this thesis is to develop a general mark of the cognitive. The starting point is that a system responsible for intelligent behaviour is a coordinated coalition of processes. This account proposes a set of functional conditions for coordination. These conditions can then be used as a sufficient condition for membership of a cognitive system. In certain circumstances, they assert that a given process plays a coordination role in the system and is therefore part of the system. The controversy in the extended cognition debate surrounds positive claims of systemhood concerning ‘external’ processes so a sufficient condition will help settle some of these debates. I argue that a Coordinated Systems Approach like this will help to move the extended cognition debate forward from its current impasse. Moreover, the application of the approach to social systems and stygmergic systems - systems where current processes are coordinated partly by the trace of previous action – promises new directions for research