Scaffolding the Iterative Process of Scientific Research: Shaping High School Students Views of Authentic Science Practice

• In Event: Toward a Refined Understanding of Social and Material Scaffolds in STEM Education

Abstract

Objectives
This study explores how scientist mentors employ social and material scaffolds and expert insights as their high school student mentees design and conduct ocean science investigations at a week-long residential marine science camp. I examine the ways that scientist mentors employ scaffolding techniques to focus their mentees attention in complex laboratory and field-based environments and emphasize the iterative process of scientific research. I explore the science backgrounds of the mentors to determine how their experiences inform their own perspectives of science and mediate their mentorship goals and scaffolding priorities. The goal of this study is to construct a scaffolding model for authentic science research that can be utilized in secondary classrooms.

Theoretical framework
This research employs a sociocultural perspective and explores how learning occurs through participation in an authentic science process (Rogoff, 1997). Traditional approaches to school inquiry present science as static and certain (Chinn & Malhotra, 2002; Rahm, Miller, Hartely & Moore, 2003). Conducting research allows students to develop new views on the nature and practice of science (Barab & Hay, 2001). Examining the types of social and material scaffolds utilized by scientist mentors can be used to construct a model to focus, channel, and model the scientific process for students (Pea, 2004).

Methods
This study was conducted during a week-long residential marine science camp that took place at a marine lab in Central California. The eleven student participants (mentees) were selected from one high school in East Oakland and represented the demographics of their school (90% Latino, 10% African American). The six mentors were ocean science graduate students or research scientists at the Central California marine lab. Data sources include individual interviews of high school students and scientist mentors and field and laboratory observations made throughout the camp.

Findings
Findings show that through the social and material scaffolding provided by scientist mentors, student mentees learn both how to conduct research employing an authentic science process and construct views of science that align with the work of real scientists.
Students whose mentors focused on “failures” in science as positive and necessary, viewed science as an iterative process where “failed” experiments are building blocks for further study. Additionally, these students understood that pilot studies are conducted to refine procedures and generate additional research questions for exploration. Students whose mentors emphasized the balance between focusing on one’s investigation and simultaneous exploration of unexpected variables that appeared during field-based data collection realized that the science process often involves tangential studies that lead to new discoveries and directions for research.

Scholarly significance
This work is important because students’ experiences with science shape their perspectives of what science is and their desires to pursue science in the future. In traditional science classrooms students often experiences science as fact-based and investigations as prescriptive, and are not exposed to the iterative process of authentic science practices. Findings from this study can be used to construct a scaffolding model of authentic science practice that can then be utilized in secondary science classrooms.

Author

• Tammie Visintainer, University of California - Berkeley