 |
Empirical Chemical Knowledge Development (EChK) |
|
Development of Empirical Chemical Knowledge (EChK)
Bond-Robinson, J., & Stucky, A. P, and Robinson, R. E. (2008, April 1). What can a laboratory study of chemistry tell us about learning? Mechanical systems, epistemology, and reasoning practices. Paper given at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching, Baltimore, MD.
Abstract: Authentic inquiry has been defined as activities that scientists engage in while conducting research (Chinn & Malhotra, 2002; Dunbar, 1995; Latour, 1986). Our goals were to illuminate the activities that scientific researchers engage in and the reasoning associated with them.  We wanted to build on the analysis of Chinn and Malhotra concerning the reasoning and epistemology in authentic activities and tasks. We used ethnographic methods to do a laboratory study of a research group performing synthesis of novel organic molecules at an R-I University in the USA. We found that authentic inquiry provided a competent infrastructure to support work, infrastructure that included both macroscale resources and theoretical conceptual bases for the work and problem solving. New knowledge was built very closely on older consensus knowledge through the standardization of practices. Since the theory and models were embodied in the practices and instrumentation used in laboratory research, the practices and instrumentation were theory-laden. Interpretation of feedback from instruments, therefore, was entirely a theory-laden process. The most common kind of reasoning seen on an everyday basis was cause and effect reasoning about physical systems that we called mechanical reasoning. Development of mechanical reasoning was required to build systems for generating feedback and evidence to reach project goals. In authentic inquiry the standardized practices in this lab generated tacit and explicit norms and standards of performance for product production, both of which coordinated researchers’ learning. The outcomes of authentic project-based research practices were that thinking and doing became aligned. Scientific knowledge production, therefore, relied on observation, experimental evidence, and rational arguments, but more specifically, we found that scientific knowledge production in the chemical laboratory depended on making experimental systems work.
Bond-Robinson, J., & Stucky, A. P. (2005, July 15-18). A Grounded
Model of Authentic Inquiry for Science Educators. Paper in the Proceedings of
Eighth International History, Philosophy, Sociology & Science Teaching
Conference, Leeds, UK.
Abstract: What identifies authentic scientific inquiry and reasoning? A
reliable model of inquiry can be grounded if it is developed by investigating
established and genuine scientific work and the accompanying reasoning. Our
theoretical framework for such an investigation follows: (1) Most scientific
work and reasoning occur in what Kuhn calls “normal science” (l970). (2)
Scientists at all levels of expertise learn as they are immersed in a world of
people, environments, and objects, e.g., a research group and research field.
(3) Discovery and justification patterns develop in social practices. (4)
Activities of discovery (or construction) and justification of knowledge are
dependent upon the research field rather than universal methodology. (5) Using
the funding and guidance of a mature researcher, university graduate Ph.D.
students perform much of American science. Thus, authentic scientific work and
reasoning occurring in the normal actions and thinking of graduate researchers
can provide a grounded model for school inquiry practices.
Bond- Robinson, J., & Stucky, A. P. (2005, July 21-23).
Grounding
scientific inquiry and knowledge in situated cognition. Paper in the
Proceedings of Twenty seventh Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society,
Strasa, Italy.
Abstract: We used ethnographic methods to study the cognitive processes
and the social environment in an organic synthesis laboratory for its particular
kind of human problem solving in scientific discovery (Klahr & Simon, 1999).
Current work in situated cognition fills the fissure between problems posed by
psychologists, both cognitive and behavioral, which have tended to focus on
individual learning and learning of academic tasks, and the problems posed by
sociologists of science who examine social influences on knowledge production
within organizations. Further, Greeno (1998) asserts that the situative
perspective, as it examines intact activity systems, can provide a synthesis
that subsumes the cognitive and behaviorist perspectives on learning. We
hypothesized that a research laboratory follows the literature conceptions of
situated learning in terms of communities of practice, cognitive apprenticeship,
scaffolded learning, affordances, constraints, and the production of valued
knowledge and other products via a social epistemology. We found that
researchers adapted their reasoning to performing effective organic synthesis
research, which is an attuning process in a type of cognitive apprenticeship.
The researchers were guided and constrained in their reasoning by the organic
research community’s practices utilizing particular objects and processes.
Aspects of any problem to solve attuned them to perception of new affordances,
thus stimulating learning in emergent intention and attention. Each field in
science has different things to reason about, different consequences to gauge,
and thus, different criteria for justifying the conclusions drawn (Toulmin,
1977). We conclude that the thinking and acting occurring over time by
apprentice researchers in the organic COP molded everyday thinking into the
scientific reasoning required to be “certified” in this field as a research
scientist.
Preece Stucky, A., & Bond-Robinson, J. (2004).
Empirical
studies of scientists at work: Analysis of authentic inquiry experiences.
Paper in the Proceedings of Annual Meeting, National Association for Research in
Science Teaching, Vancouver, B.C., 2004.
Abstract: Our work uses
grounded theory methodology for developing theory about the nature of scientific
inquiry on a day-to-day basis. Symbolic interaction and situated learning
provide a theoretical framework, further cemented by Goldman’s analysis of
social epistemology and Toulmin’s determination that each scientific community
of practice has its own standards for justification. Data were collected from
surveys, field notes, approximately
100 hours of videotape of researchers working in a chemical laboratory, and
interviews with participant chemical researchers. A laboratory’s line of
research is divided into individual projects, some of which are similar. A
community of practice and its functioning can be described by its unique
purposes, constraints concerning performance and production, and potential
affordances in the environment that may or may not be afforded to individual
researchers. Daily concerns of researchers include aligning with the standards
regarding performance and production and solving difficulties or anomalies that
are obstacles to project goals. Authentic feedback is provided steadily about
their work, which tells them whether (a) the system is working, (b) they have
gotten the desirable product, or (c) some unexpected result has occurred.
Learning is the education of intention and attention that occurs both in a
continuous manner as well as discontinuously in the form of problems that stop
progress and require troubleshooting. Peer and mentor interactions mediate the
ability of the individual to perceive and to use affordances, thus performing a
large portion of the coordinating interactions that occur for researchers.
Implications of these findings about the nature of authentic research on a
day-to-day basis are applied to inquiry in science education K-16. Definite
roles for human-computer interaction are grounded in this study as to the need
to fulfill crucial roles in school inquiry.
