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Re: help needed-gifted education and inquiry science



Richard,
Thanks for the information. It is very helpful. Would it be possible
to get a complete citation for your results mentioned as being published
in 1998. Thanks again.
Kathy Daniel

Richard Hake wrote:

In her Phys-L/Physhare post of 15 Apr 2003 with the above title Kathy
Daniel wrote:

"I am interested in any research which might have been done
concerning specifically the academically gifted student and his/her
experiences with activity-based, inquiry, discovery, modeling,
constructivist science activities."

In his excellent new book, Redish (2003, page 9) wrote:

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
At this point, Sagredo. . .[a prototype successful researcher at a
large research-oriented state university]. . . complains "But if you
modify introductory physics so that the average student does better,
aren't you going to bore the very best students?" Sagredo, I agree
with you that we would need to be concerned if that were the case. If
we were to improve our instruction to the middle 50% while degrading
it for the top 5%, it would be a disaster for our profession. What
is particularly gratifying is that the improved learning that takes
place takes place as a result of instructional reform based on
understanding of how students think is not limited to the "middle of
the road" student who was previously getting by but was not getting
much of long-lasting value from the course. Over the past decade,
physics education research has consistently documented that the top
students in the class show even stronger gains . . .(does Redish mean
NORMALIZED gains?]. . . than the midrange students from
research-motivated cognitive-based reforms. [See, for example,
Cummmings et al. (1999)].
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Cummings et al. (1999) wrote:

CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
Upon viewing the data in Fig. 3, we note that weaker students (i.e.,
students with low pre-test scores) benefited from being in the
experimental sections. What about the strongest students (i.e., those
with high pre-test scores)? Figure 4 is a graph of the average g . .
. .[average NORMALIZED gain = (actual gain)/(maximum possible gain)].
. . for students divided into groups based on whether their pre-test
scores were in the upper, middle, or lower third of the entire pool
for their group (experimental or standard). Figure 4(a) represents
this result on the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation and Fig.
4(b) is for the Force Concept Inventory. THESE FIGURES CLEARLY SHOW
THAT ALL STUDENTS, WHETHER THEY PRE-TESTED HIGH, MIDDLE, OR LOW,
BENEFITED FROM THESE EXPERIMENTAL TEACHING TECHNIQUES. This result
was consistent on both exams. The correlation coefficient between
pre-test score and [NORMALIZED] gain, for the entire group of
students (experimental and standard taken together, N = 347), is -
0.06 for the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and + 0.16 for the Force
and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE). Somewhat stronger
correlations seem to exist for subsets of the population.
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

In addition, consistent with Redish's statement that "top students in
the class show even stronger [NORMALIZED] gains than the midrange
students," Fig. 4 of Cummings et al. indicates larger NORMALIZED
gains for the top third of students than for the middle third and
bottom third for both the FCI and the FMCE.

However, it is not completely obvious that within a single
institution one can discriminate between "top" and "midrange"
students on the basis of FCI or FMCE pretest scores.

Perhaps a more cogent argument that at least "top" students have
normalized gains similar to (if not exceeding) those of "midrange"
students is that in a survey of 62 courses [Hake (1998a)] in
institutions of widely varying types, the correlation of class
average pretest scores <pre> with class average NORMALIZED gains <g>
was a very low plus 0.02. Thus, for example, reform Harvard classes
composed of (on average) "top" students achieved <pre> of about 70
and <g>'s of 0.48 to 0.64; while reform Indiana University classes of
(on average) "middle-road" students achieved <pre> of about 35 and
<g>'s of 0.54 to 0.65.

On this same thread Bob Beichner in a Phys-L post of 16 Apr 2003
05:11:57-0400 wrote:

"We have data from MIT and other schools showing students in the top
third of activity-based classes benefiting the most (i.e. they show
highest [NORMALIZED] gains on pre/post testing). This will be coming
out in a paper that Jeff Saul and I have nearly finished. You'll find
some results at <http://scaleup.ncsu.edu> and clicking on the "about
scaleup" link."

From the material at <http://scaleup.ncsu.edu> it's not clear how
students were divided into top, middle, and lower thirds at each
institution. But in any case one can compare different institutions:
reading from the graphs at <http://scaleup.ncsu.edu> the reform MIT
classes composed of (on average) "top" students achieved <g> of about
0.56 on the FMCE; while reform NCSU classes of (on average)
"middle-road" students achieved <g> of about 0.39 on the FMCE.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>

REFERENCES
Cummings, K., J. Marx, R. Thornton, D. Kuhl. 1999. "Evaluating
innovations in studio physics," Physics Ed. Res. Supplement to Am. J.
Phys. 67(7): S38-S44.

Redish, E.F. 2003 "Teaching Physics With the Physics Suite." John Wiley.