An analysis of the nature of students' metaconceptual processes and the effectiveness of metaconceptual teaching practices on students' conceptual understanding of force and motion
Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: This study had three aims: (1) to investigate the effectiveness of facilitating students' metaconceptual processes, (2) to examine the durability of the impact of metaconceptual teaching on students' conceptual understanding of force and motion, and(3) to gain insight into the nature of metaconceptual processes as the students participated in the metaconceptual teaching activities.In examining the nature of students' metaconceptual processes, the purpose was to tease apart and categorize the types of metaconceptual processes, portray the trends within each type of metaconceptual process and describe the characteristics and the content of the metaconceptual processes related to students' ideas that changed throughout the metaconceptual teaching interventions.A multi-method research design that incorporated experimental and case study designs was employed.While the experimental group was exposed to metaconceptual teaching interventions, in the control group the same science content was taught by tradition instruction.The research was conducted in the two classrooms of a physics teacher.Participants of this study who were enrolled in one of the two physics classes involved 45 grade eleven and grade twelve high school students.In order to study the nature of students' metaconceptual processes, three students from the experimental group were selected based on their background in physics and their pre-instructional conceptual v Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Gulseren, for her endless love, patience, and for all she has done for me, and to my daughter, Oyku, for the joy she brought to our life.vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My doctoral experience has been a very rewarding yet difficult journey.It has been full of challenges and endless rewards.On the path of this journey, there are many people who through their encouragement, guidance, and knowledge have made important contributions to this dissertation.It would be impossible to list everyone who contributed, or to adequately explain the extent of the contributions of those who are mentioned.Writing this dissertation has given me a vivid meaning to the acknowledgments I have seen in other dissertations.Phrases like "immensely thankful" and "deeply indebted" have real resonance now.The people who I mentioned in these acknowledgments should know how heartfelt and sincere my gratitude is.In a doctoral study, advisors make a great difference!I was fortunate enough to work with three exceptional advisors throughout my doctoral experience.The personal and academic qualities they shared had a lasting impact not only on my dissertation but also on my future academic life.First of all, I would like to thank my co-advisor, Dr.Christopher Andersen, who has helped me through academic, and personal obstacles that I have met during this long process with intelligence, understanding, and caring.Chris was readily available for me, as he so generously is for all of his students.His oral and written comments were always extremely perceptive, helpful, and appropriate.He met with me during weekends, and during his free time, spending hours at a time working vii painstakingly through page after page of my drafts.I want to thank him especially for his detailed comments and suggestions on this study, his support and advice in other areas of academic life and many thought-provoking conversations that we had concerning metacognition.He fostered a stress-free advisor-advisee relationship, which was crucial to the completion of this work.I am also thankful to Chris for organizing many social gatherings that gave me the chance to meet, interact, and share ideas with other graduate students.Dr. Kathy Trundle, who accepted the task of being my co-advisor after Dr. Beeth left OSU, is no less important in helping me turn vague intuitions into coherent and explicit analyses.She contributed a lot to converting my early drafts into a readable and coherent whole.Her openness to new ways of seeing and doing, her confidence in my ability, and her insightful feedbacks sustained and guided this challenging process.I would especially like to thank Dr. Trundle for her good heart, friendly face, encouraging words, and positive attitude.It was a genuine pleasure to work with you during the busiest and stressful moments of this process.Dr. Michael Beeth had been my advisor in years 2000-2003.After he left OSU, he has taken the trouble to continue to serve on my dissertation committee simply out of the goodness of his heart and his willingness to contribute to educational research.As a distant committee member, he contributed to this study in the extent that is no less than an advisor could make a difference in a dissertation.The research group about metacognition that he initiated gave me the starting point and provided me with the opportunity to form and improve my initial ideas about this study.Dr. Beeth continually stimulated my analytical thinking, showed me different ways to approach research viii questions, and greatly assisted me with scientific writing.His kindness, caring, and support gave me a new appreciation and importance of advisor-advisee relationship.I am immensely grateful for his insightful comments, helpful suggestions, challenging questions, and constructive feedbacks that he gave me through hour-long phone calls.With his exceptional personal and academic qualities he will serve as a model to me in my career as a college professor.I am extremely grateful to Mr. H., who generously volunteered to conduct the instructional interventions in his classrooms.He allowed me to be part of his classrooms for more than four months.He always made me feel welcomed to his classes and had been very patient with my endless demands throughout the instructional interventions.I cannot thank you enough for sharing your ideas with me and for your input in designing the instructional activities.You kindly sacrificed your precious time and energy to get involved in this research.Working with you on this study was an exceptional opportunity and experience for me.I am also thankful to your wife and your wonderful children for opening your home to my husband and me.I cannot express enough my appreciation to the students who participated in this study.Their cooperation and effort during the implementation of the instructional interventions allowed me to obtain rich data for this study.Without their time and effort this study could not have been accomplished.My gratitude goes to the Turkish Ministry of Education, Ms. Betty Schoenbaum, and Mr. Harold C. Miles for their financial support during my doctoral study at the Ohio State University.During the past five years, my friends in Columbus have been a great support in all ways.They have come along with me through difficult moments, shared many tears ix and laughs.They make me feel the warmth of a family especially when I feel lonely away from my country.I would like to thank Dincer, Elif, Gonul, Omer, Semra, Taskin, Tolga, and Yesim for their treasured friendship for which I will be forever grateful.I also would like to thank all of you for providing transportation to the research site when I needed.My special thanks go to Omer, for our discussions at the initial stages of this dissertation and for re-coding the data, which was necessary to check the trustworthiness of the analyses.I wish to express my warmest thanks to Elif and Gonul
Author: Nejla Yürük
Institution: The Ohio State University
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1667226333