An important goal for IDGE was to develop the critical thinking skills and positive attitudes toward careers in science of participating UB students. This was to be accomplished through a hand-on, minds-on approach with student-centered instruction.
Throughout the summer activities, opportunities were given for the students to be able to express their own ideas and own understandings about the topics under discussion. Students were challenged to think independently and discover their own solutions to the task at hand. Often times, students expressed their frustrations and wanted to be told step-by-step instructions.
Activities
To evaluate changes in attitudinal and critical thinking skills, multiple survey instruments were administered to students at the start of the program. Unfortunately, because of the abrupt refusal of access to students in January 2007, only 8 students completed the instruments for comparison.
The IDGE Upward Bound program was evaluated using the Thinking About Science Survey Instrument (TSSI) to determine changes in perceptions about science and scientific knowledge, the Student Attitude Toward Science Class (SATS) to assess changes in attitudes toward science class, a Likert-type Satisfaction Survey to determine student satisfaction with the summer program, and anonymous electronic journals to provide student perceptions of the process.
The International Critical Thinking Essay Test pretest was administered in July 2006 using a contemporary newspaper article about contrails. Students were asked a series of questions about the article including, the key question, important information, students were deficient in identifying the key question of the article (only 7 of 23 correct) and fewer yet were able to determine the important information in the article (5 of 23 students) with still fewer students able to identify the conclusion of the article (4 of 23) and only one student was able to identify the science knowledge needed for the study. Unfortunately, no post test was administered so there is no data on progress on critical thinking skills for IDGE experience.
A full report from our external evaluator, Deb Hemler, is available which outlines the complete analysis of the survey results. es |
