Unpacking Students’ Perceptions of Relevance-Supportive Instruction in Middle School Science Classrooms: A Mixed-Methods Study

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 2:30 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Research on Middle-Grades Science Teaching and Learning (Table 10)

Abstract

Making science lessons relevant for students is important to increase students’ motivation, engagement and achievement in science. Teachers can attempt to make their lessons more relevant to students in many ways. However, little is known about how students perceive this relevance-supportive instruction. This mixed methods case study unpacks how students and teachers perceive relevance-supportive instruction and which instructional practices perceive as more and less supportive of their relevance. Results show that incorporating everyday objects into science lessons and giving open-ended questions and tasks support their relevance more than distal examples, closed-ended tasks, and Initiate-Response-Evaluate (IRE) questioning.

Authors

• Lauren Cabrera, Michigan State University

• Nayana Turner

• Samuela Mouzaoir, Michigan State University

• Stephanie Hyewon Shin, Michigan State University

• Eun Ha Kim, Michigan State University

• Gwen C. Marchand, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Christopher J. Harris, WestEd

• Jennifer A. Schmidt, Michigan State University