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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science
Learning and Teaching, Volume 5, Issue 1, Article 1 (Apr., 2004) Salih ÇEPNİ, Tuncay ÖZSEVGEÇ and Lale CERRAH Turkish middle school students'cognitive development levels in science
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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science
Learning and Teaching, Volume 5, Issue 1, Article 1 (Apr., 2004) Salih ÇEPNİ, Tuncay ÖZSEVGEÇ and Lale CERRAH Turkish middle school students'cognitive development levels in science
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Introduction
Understanding the effects of constructivist and inquiry approaches in science education and studying students' abstract reasoning abilities have become very important. In this process, cognitive growth is considered as a highly desirable educational goal, and many curricula are designed to develop students' particular cognitive skills. The meaning of cognitive development can be defined as students' understanding levels of the concepts or principles, students' operational stages; the concrete operational stage or the formal operational stage, and thinking abilities (Bybee & Sund, 1990).
Many science educators have studied different subjects such as planning and developing instructional programs, classroom activities, laboratory activities, teaching materials, measurement-assessment methods and pre-service teacher education strategies for the purpose of developing students' cognitive thinking abilities (Schneider & Renner, 1980; Moshman & Thompson, 1981; Lawson, 1982; Akdeniz, 1993; Çepni & Özsevgeç, 2002; Özsevgeç; 2002).
Espojo, Good & Westmeyer (1975) and Cohen (1980) express the view that one of the important aims of science education is to develop students' formal reasoning or thinking abilities. Lawson, Karplus & Adi (1978) defend the idea that students should reach a formal operation level to understand abstract science concepts and the processes of scientific investigation. Çepni and Özsevgeç (2002) argue that if assessment questions do not match students' cognitive development levels they would not contribute to developing students' cognitive reasoning. These types of questions also demolish their self-confidence and their enthusiasm towards science lessons and as a result, they would not progress in the cognitive domain as expected.
Many studies showed that the majority of middle and even secondary school students do not reach formal operation levels (Shayer, Kucherman, & Wylam, 1976; Lawson, Karplus, & Adi, 1978; Shemesh, Eckstein, & Lazarowitz, 1992; Adey & Shayer, 1990, 1994). Some cross-national (Karplus, et al. 1977; Keats, 1985; Mwamwenda & Mwamwenda 1989; Valanides & Markoulis, 2000) and cultural studies (Wilson & Wilson, 1984; Mwamwenda, 1993a, 1999; Iqbal & Shayer, 2000) have been carried out to determine students' reasoning abilities in order to compare cultural effects on cognitive development levels.
Piburn (1980) investigated the connection among spatial reasoning (the ability to perceive spatial patterns or to maintain orientation with respect to objects in space) and formal thought, especially the schema of proportionality, and science achievement of 6th-form (11 years) high schools students in New Zealand. The subjects were found to be 18% concrete reasoners and 35% formal reasoners and the others were at a transitional level. Male students were more successful on a science achievement test and a Piagetian task, but no significant differences were observed on other tasks and spatial ability. Ehindero (1982) found that in Nigeria there was no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female performance on content-free Piagetian tasks.
A study was done by Mwamwenda (1999) to determine the effects of both age and education levels among African undergraduate students in their performance on combinatorial reasoning tasks. He used a questionnaire consisting of biographical information about participants and combinatorial reasoning questions. At the end of the study, he found that performance on the combinatorial reasoning tasks were related to both students' ages and education levels for African students.
Wilson and Wilson (1984) observed formal operational thought for two-year-National High School and one-year Preliminary Year program students in Papua New Guinea. The study was designed to investigate 11th grade students' Piagetian levels, determine developments in cognitive level during a two year instructional program and examine the relationship between level of cognitive development and science achievement at a National High School (NHS) and one year Preliminary Year program (PY). After the trial, a Pendulum task was used to assess students' cognitive levels. The task was adapted to a group format and responded to by the subjects (N = 739 for NHS and N = 165 for PY) by using the structured answer sheets. They found that there were significant developments in students' cognitive domain for the NHS program. However, most of the students were at the transitional level. In addition to this, a low correlation between cognitive development and science grade was found.
Iqbal and Shayer (2000) investigated Pakistanian secondary school students' development of formal thinking with an intervention program; CASE (Cognitive Acceleration Through Science Education). The study was implemented between 1992 and 1996. The study involved students of two private schools and one public school, in Pakistan. A pendulum, volume and heaviness test was used to determine students' cognitive development levels with a pre-and post-test approach. Students' science and math achievements were tested at the end-of-year examinations at each school. Results show that males' cognitive developments were better than females in the public school. Private school students had higher thinking abilities and science achievement than their public school peers.
From the literature, some studies from both western and non-western countries show that students' gender and age affect their cognitive developmental levels. In addition to this, private school students are determined to have higher reasoning abilities than their peers in public schools. It should be concluded that apart from cognitive equilibrium (balance between old learning and learning new things) (Lefrancois, 1995) and ages, students' attitudes, beliefs, academic achievement, gender differences, experiences with teaching materials, and social and environmental conditions also affect students' cognitive development. Although many studies related to this issue have been implemented in many countries; these types of studies have not been given attention in Turkey up to now. Having some unique characters, Turkey differs from other countries. These are; religious differences (almost 99 percent Muslim), socio-economic levels (less industrial, more agriculture), teaching approaches (teacher-centred and content oriented approaches are dominant), students' and their families expectations from the schools (to have high score from the LGS; a nation-wide selection examination for high schools), culture differences (carrying main characteristics of European and Asian culture and values), place of female students in Turkish society (primary and middle schools are compulsory for each individual in Turkey regardless of their gender). We believe that all these characters make Turkey different from the other countries.
Copyright (C) 2004 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 5, Issue 1, Article 1 (Apr., 2004). All Rights Reserved.
