Epistemic Discourses and Conceptual Coherence in Students’ Explanatory Models: The Case of Ocean Acidification and Its Impacts on Oysters
Engaging students in epistemic and conceptual aspects of modeling practices is crucial for phenomena-based learning in science classrooms. However, many students and teachers still struggle to actualize the reformed vision of the modeling practice in their classrooms. Through a discourse analysis of...
Published in: | Education Sciences |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
2023
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13050496 |
id |
ftmdpi:oai:mdpi.com:/2227-7102/13/5/496/ |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftmdpi:oai:mdpi.com:/2227-7102/13/5/496/ 2023-08-20T04:09:00+02:00 Epistemic Discourses and Conceptual Coherence in Students’ Explanatory Models: The Case of Ocean Acidification and Its Impacts on Oysters Asli Sezen-Barrie Mary K. Stapleton Gili Marbach-Ad Anica Miller-Rushing 2023-05-14 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13050496 EN eng Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute STEM Education https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/educsci13050496 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Education Sciences; Volume 13; Issue 5; Pages: 496 explanatory models climate science epistemic discourse conceptual coherence Text 2023 ftmdpi https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13050496 2023-08-01T10:04:08Z Engaging students in epistemic and conceptual aspects of modeling practices is crucial for phenomena-based learning in science classrooms. However, many students and teachers still struggle to actualize the reformed vision of the modeling practice in their classrooms. Through a discourse analysis of 150 students’ explanatory models (as social semiotic spaces) from 14 classes, we propose a qualitative framework that investigates conceptual coherence and epistemic discourses to achieve a gapless explanation of scientific phenomena. Our framework draws attention to four critical components of students’ explanatory models: (a) key ideas based on evidence, (b) the discourse modalities of how evidence is presented, (c) scientific representations from the cultures of scientific disciplines, (d) systems thinking approaches directly and indirectly related to oceans and marine ecosystems. Our results indicate that students struggled to construct cohesive explanatory models that communicated all key ideas and the relationships among them, with the majority of student-developed models in our study categorized as ‘insufficiently’ cohesive (lacking key ideas and the relationships among them), and only a small percentage of the models considered ‘extensively’ cohesive (all key ideas attended to, as well as the relationships among them). Text Ocean acidification MDPI Open Access Publishing Education Sciences 13 5 496 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
MDPI Open Access Publishing |
op_collection_id |
ftmdpi |
language |
English |
topic |
explanatory models climate science epistemic discourse conceptual coherence |
spellingShingle |
explanatory models climate science epistemic discourse conceptual coherence Asli Sezen-Barrie Mary K. Stapleton Gili Marbach-Ad Anica Miller-Rushing Epistemic Discourses and Conceptual Coherence in Students’ Explanatory Models: The Case of Ocean Acidification and Its Impacts on Oysters |
topic_facet |
explanatory models climate science epistemic discourse conceptual coherence |
description |
Engaging students in epistemic and conceptual aspects of modeling practices is crucial for phenomena-based learning in science classrooms. However, many students and teachers still struggle to actualize the reformed vision of the modeling practice in their classrooms. Through a discourse analysis of 150 students’ explanatory models (as social semiotic spaces) from 14 classes, we propose a qualitative framework that investigates conceptual coherence and epistemic discourses to achieve a gapless explanation of scientific phenomena. Our framework draws attention to four critical components of students’ explanatory models: (a) key ideas based on evidence, (b) the discourse modalities of how evidence is presented, (c) scientific representations from the cultures of scientific disciplines, (d) systems thinking approaches directly and indirectly related to oceans and marine ecosystems. Our results indicate that students struggled to construct cohesive explanatory models that communicated all key ideas and the relationships among them, with the majority of student-developed models in our study categorized as ‘insufficiently’ cohesive (lacking key ideas and the relationships among them), and only a small percentage of the models considered ‘extensively’ cohesive (all key ideas attended to, as well as the relationships among them). |
format |
Text |
author |
Asli Sezen-Barrie Mary K. Stapleton Gili Marbach-Ad Anica Miller-Rushing |
author_facet |
Asli Sezen-Barrie Mary K. Stapleton Gili Marbach-Ad Anica Miller-Rushing |
author_sort |
Asli Sezen-Barrie |
title |
Epistemic Discourses and Conceptual Coherence in Students’ Explanatory Models: The Case of Ocean Acidification and Its Impacts on Oysters |
title_short |
Epistemic Discourses and Conceptual Coherence in Students’ Explanatory Models: The Case of Ocean Acidification and Its Impacts on Oysters |
title_full |
Epistemic Discourses and Conceptual Coherence in Students’ Explanatory Models: The Case of Ocean Acidification and Its Impacts on Oysters |
title_fullStr |
Epistemic Discourses and Conceptual Coherence in Students’ Explanatory Models: The Case of Ocean Acidification and Its Impacts on Oysters |
title_full_unstemmed |
Epistemic Discourses and Conceptual Coherence in Students’ Explanatory Models: The Case of Ocean Acidification and Its Impacts on Oysters |
title_sort |
epistemic discourses and conceptual coherence in students’ explanatory models: the case of ocean acidification and its impacts on oysters |
publisher |
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13050496 |
genre |
Ocean acidification |
genre_facet |
Ocean acidification |
op_source |
Education Sciences; Volume 13; Issue 5; Pages: 496 |
op_relation |
STEM Education https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/educsci13050496 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13050496 |
container_title |
Education Sciences |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
5 |
container_start_page |
496 |
_version_ |
1774721632797982720 |