Showing papers in "School Science and Mathematics in 1971"

Differences In Science Concepts Held by Children From Three Social‐Economic Levels*

Abstract: EDFS Price MF-$0.25 HC-$0.90 *Concept Formation, *Elementary School Science, *Scientific Concepts, *Socioeconomic Status, *Student Characteristics Fifteen elementary schools (310 fourth-grade pupils) used in this study were classified as serving high, middle, or low social-economic groups on the basis of information from the city offices and the administration' of the metropolitan school district participating in the study. The children in all of the schools used the same text and had the same amount of instruction per week. Teachers with little experience and those with many years of experience were distributed among the schools. Based on concepts selected from the district's basic text, fifteen questions were selected for the test. In addition to answering the questions, the students were asked to suggest a way to find out the answer to each question whether or not they knew the answer. (Significant differences at the .01 level were found between the means of all three groups on the I.Q. test and raw test scores on the test of scientific understanding.) Significant differences were also found between social-economic groups when raw test score means were adjusted for I.Q. differences. (BR) U.S. DEPIRMII1 Of MIDI EDUCTION t WEILIN OFFICE Of EDUCATION TINS DKUNENT NIS SEEM IEPIODUCED EXACTLY AS WEIRD FROM THE MON OC 014ANIZATION mum IL POINTS Of VIEW OR OPINIONS Differences In Science Concepts STATED DO NOT mummy REPIERNI OFFICIAL ME OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. 47% Held 2y Children From Three Social-Economic Levels 4 N. Carol A. Klein reN College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minnesota CD LLI Science education has now become more than an incidental part of the elementary school curriculum. Many new textbooks and curricular materials have been developed or are in planning stages. Only a few of these new programs, however, are concerned specifically with materials for the educationally disadvantaged. Children are disadvantaged because of low family income, by being a member of a minority group or race, by living in a ghetto or inner city, or by moving with migrant working parents. Any of these disadvantaged or combination of them may result in educational problems. Although programs such as \"Head Start\" have been implemented because there is evidence that social-economic conditions influence a child's readiness for learning and success in school, once the child is in the formal school situation, any differences resulting from social-economic influences are largely ignored, and the same curriculum often is used for all of the children in the city. Related Studies The literature reviewed for this study was limlced to research reported in the last twenty-five years, because the nature of science teaching and the sources of information children have available are much different than the nature study oriented science before 1945. Much of the literature examined included little or no statistical treatment of the data. This wr=s due in part to the nature the studies, and in some cses, to the simple failure to report important data. (44. CitrUaleS that were characterized-by clear d .mn ana 6. at were concerned with assessing the science concepts of children, or the sources of information children use in science, were included in the literature study. In studies where social-economic grouping was considered, Almy I found that children in the lower socialeconomic classes follow the developmental steps postulated by pia ;et more slowly than children from upper or middle social-economic groups. Dart and Pradha2 n found considerable differences in children's concepts of science and the nature of knowledgewhen they compared the children in Hawaii with three sub-cultural groups in Uepal. This study was still in the pilot stage and no statistical data were reported. 4 Investigations by Anderson, 3 McCollum, Brown, 5 .,:mpt, 6 and Inbody7 provided information about science concept development in children. The sources of information children use in science were in7 11 vestigated by Schenke, o Young, Bergen, 10 and Kuse. The methods used to determine the sources of information that children used varied, as did the results. In some cases almost half of the science information possessed by children was attributed to observation and experimentation. In other studies, books and parents or teachers were most frecuent sources of information. . *) . , . , ((I .f : 0. $1 4.) I 1 :3 .. i 31 rr.1 ;; 0 .) 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