Teaching the control-of-variables strategy: A meta-analysis
By Martin Schwichow, Steve Croker, Corinne Zimmerman, Tim N. Höffler, Hendrik Härtig. 2016
148 citations recorded by the source corpus.
A core component of scientific inquiry is the ability to evaluate evidence generated from controlled experiments and then to relate that evidence to a hypothesis or theory. The control-of-variables strategy (CVS) is foundational for school science and scientific literacy, but it does not routinely develop without practice or instruction. This meta-analysis summarizes the findings from 72 intervention studies at least partly designed to increase students' CVS skills. By using the method of robust meta-regression for dealing with multiple effect sizes from single studies, and by excluding outliers, we estimated a mean effect size of g = 0.61 (95% CI = 0.53–0.69). Our moderator analyses focused on design features, student characteristics, instruction characteristics, and assessment features. Only two instruction characteristics – the use of cognitive conflict and the use of demonstrations – were significantly related to student achievement. Furthermore, the format of the assessment instrument was identified as a major source of variability between study outcomes. Implications for teaching and learning science process skills and future research are discussed.
Subfields: Education, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Statistics and Probability
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fc78344e483a3ac774a7e0557900fa3e31622b8a
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In Education
In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
In Statistics and Probability
Citations in the corpus
- Measuring scientific reasoning – a review of test instruments (2017, background): “Furthermore, it would be informative to see if the result by Schwichow et al. (2016) showing that the effect sizes for interventions targeting the controlof-variables strategy are moderated by the test format can be replicated in other areas of scientific reasoning as well.”