A Study on Observation and Consideration of Experimental Results in Science Learning : Through a comparison of elementary, junior high and senior high school students

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to clarify the learning situation of senior high school students with respect to the learning activities of observation and consideration of experimental results. In addition, the secondary purpose of this study was to clarify the structure of factors in the same educational setting that affect the learning of elementary, junior high and senior high school students from the perspective of a comparison between these students based on these results. A 13-item questionnaire was conducted on 380 high school students in order to achieve the purposes of this study. The results of this study clarified (1) the learning situation of senior high school students with respect to learning activities that derive consideration and (2) the structure of factors in the same educational setting that affect the learning of elementary, junior high and senior high school students. (1) Rather than describing their considerations after watching and listening to the summary of the teacher, students lead the consideration of the results and describe the conclusions they have reached themselves. (2) With respect to learning activities that derive consideration, hypothesis-setting activities strongly affect the learning of elementary students and reliance on the teacher strongly affects the learning of junior high and senior high school students