In this paper, researchers from the University of Florida discuss the cognitive movement in instruction, which has major implications for research and practice in informal settings. The authors focus on a number of promising cognitive lines of inquiry and suggest their application in informal settings.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
John J. Koran, Jr.Mary Lou KoranJohn Scott Foster
This is an abstract of Marilyn G. Hood's 1981 Ph.D. dissertation at Ohio State University. Hood researched the relationship between critical attributes of leisure choices and audience preferences for selected activities, such as museum participation. The research was carried out at the Toledo Museum of Art.
In this article, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers Dawn D' Amico and Wendy Pokorny discuss findings from their study that investigated the impact of a museum visit on preconceived notions of scientific explanation. D' Amico and Pokorny found that visitors' preconceptions were unlikely to change as a result of viewing exhibits.
This research project is a follow-up to previous research on the persistence of high ability minority youth in college programs for mathematics, science, engineering, premedicine and predentistry. The earlier research used data retrieved from the 1985 College Board files for 5,602 students with SAT mathematical scores of 550 or above. All were minority students except for a comparison sample of 404 White students. In 1987, a first follow-up was conducted. 61 percent of the non-Asian American minority students had enrolled in college and were majoring in MSE fields in comparison with 55 percent of the White students and 70 percent for the Asian American students. In the current phase of this research, the original sample will be resurveyed, five years after high school graduation. A subsample will be interviewed in-depth. The major goal of this phase will be to answer three critical questions: which sample members are still studying or employed in MSE fields, what are their unique characteristics, and what are the theoretical and national policy implications of the results. This project is jointly supported by the Studies and Analysis and the Research in Teaching and Learning Programs.
The investigation of naive conceptions of science has many implications for both teaching and learning. The predominant model for past investigations has been with school children or within very formal settings. Extending investigations of misconceptions to informal settings is the challenge of this research. Museum visitors' misconceptions about two topics, gravity and mechanical advantage, will be recorded through a variety of interview formats. Twenty-five persons from each of the age ranges 9-11, 12-14, 15-18, and college students/adults will be interviewed. Information from the interview will be used to modify the current exhibit or to build new prototypes. The research will determine if a modification can be made that results in individuals moving from their previous misconceptions toward a correct conceptualization of the concepts. This research will document what individuals actually learn from museum exhibits and how "front end evaluation" can be used to redesign exhibits for maximum concept learning. The proposed research is challenging and has the potential of adding significant information to science education research on misconceptions. The principal investigator is highly respected in the field of museum education and the associated staff and consultants are the top scholars in their respective fields.