Effect of Abstract Sentences on Students' Reasoning When Responding to "Why Is This True?" Questions

• In Event: 26.081 - Poster Session 3
  In Poster Session: 26.081-2 - Creating Science and Literacy Connections

Abstract

The interrogation method is a question based reading strategy that has students read a passage of text and answer “Why is this true?” for a sentence from the text. While previous interrogation studies have focused on the understanding of science facts, this study focuses on students’ ability to reason through concrete and abstract sentences and statements. Student responses to interrogation questions from an introductory physics course for non-physics science majors were collected and coded for accuracy and depth of interrogation. We found that students have more difficulty responding to sentences that are abstract, as opposed to sentences that contain concrete objects or actions. We suggest that explicit scaffolding may improve students’ ability to reason through the abstract statements.

Authors

• Robert C Zisk, Rutgers University - New Brunswick/Piscataway

• Eugenia Etkina, Rutgers University