P1.85
Investigating middle school and college students' conceptions and misconceptions about wind, fog, and tornadoes
PAPER WITHDRAWN
Elizabeth Polito, San Francisco State Univ., San Francisco, CA; and K. Tanner, J. P. Monteverdi, and O. Garcia
Meteorological content is presented in K-12 educational standards and in university general education courses, yet little research has been done to explore how students conceptualize weather phenomena. This investigation probes the understanding of students at three cognitive levels—6th grade earth science students, university non-meteorology majors, and meteorology major students—of three meteorological phenomena—wind, fog, and tornadoes. All students were enrolled in educational institutions in San Francisco, CA. The meteorological content chosen for this project—wind, fog, and tornadoes—was deliberate. Wind is a fundamental process on our planet, and has the potential to cause great damage. Students have direct experience with wind on a daily basis. Fog is a dominant feature of San Francisco climatology and a familiar phenomenon to students living in our region. Tornadoes are associated with devastating winds and represent a destructive weather phenomenon that San Francisco students likely only experience indirectly through movie representations and other media outlets. Data collection on student conceptions of weather phenomena consisted of two phases—initial written essay assessments and subsequent videotaped interviews. Phase I, written essay assessments, was given to a large sample population (65 middle school students, 50 university non-meteorology majors, and 10 university meteorology majors) and consisted of three sets of three questions (nine questions total). Each question set consisted of one high-order application question in the form of a challenge statement. Challenge statements asserted a common misconception or truism and ask the students to rank their level of agreement on a scale (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree). Once the participants responded on the scale, they are then given five minutes to explain in writing why they chose their response. The next two questions in the set were low-level knowledge questions aimed at probing student knowledge of mechanisms underlying meteorological phenomena. Participants were given five minutes to respond to each question. To analyze the resulting qualitative data, the written essay assessments were scored using a developed conceptual rubric by multiple observers, using inter-observer reliability to measure agreement in scoring. The results from this phase helped to structure the interview protocol utilized in Phase II. A subset of each student population was subsequently interviewed, allowing us to probe deeper into students' conceptions about weather. This two-phase approach allowed us to identify and explore misconceptions concerning wind, fog, and tornadoes. Preliminary results from phase I probing student conceptions of wind show that over 54% of 6th grade students do not see any connection between the sun and wind, offering instead that the moon, clouds, and the ocean are key contributors to wind development. 13% of students conclude that because wind happens at night, the sun could not play a role in wind generation. By identifying students' misconceptions about wind, fog, and tornadoes, scientists and educators can create more effective learning experiences that address student misconceptions, promote conceptual change, and move students toward a more scientific viewpoint.
Poster Session 1, Student Conference Posters
Sunday, 11 January 2009, 5:30 PM-7:00 PM
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