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A study of students' construction ofscience knowledge: talk and writing ina collaborative groupJang Syh-Jong aa Chung-Yuan Christian University , Taiwan, ROCPublished online: 20 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Jang Syh-Jong (2007) A study of students' construction of scienceknowledge: talk and writing in a collaborative group, Educational Research, 49:1, 65-81, DOI:10.1080/00131880701200781

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A study of students’ construction

of science knowledge: talk and writing

in a collaborative group

Jang Syh-Jong*Chung-Yuan Christian University, Taiwan, ROC

Background

In Taiwan, traditional college science teaching concentrates on the direct transmission of

knowledge or facts from instructors to students and thereby involves non-interactive teaching

activities. Some researchers recommend that college faculties should be moving away from lectures

as a means of instruction and increasing opportunities for students’ discussion of experimental

results and issues related to content and the nature of the discipline.

Purpose

The purpose of the present study was to examine students’ construction of science knowledge

through talk and writing activities performed in a collaborative learning group. The research

question was to explore the effects and to ascertain how talk and writing affect each other in

students’ knowledge construction.

Programme description

The context of this study is a physical science method course designed especially for secondary

science preservice teachers, as part of the teacher education programme at a Taiwan university. The

course module is composed of three components, including text, experiments and activities, and

problems. The experiment and activity are intended to be the main vehicles for the learning, and

embedded concepts or principles in a given science procedure that students could follow,

investigate and complete.

Sample

The primary researcher with his class of 19 college students participated in this study. There were

eight males and 11 females, ranging in age from 19 to 27 years. These 19 participants were selected

for the two-year teacher education programme of the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Earth

Sciences in the university. All hoped to be science teachers in secondary schools in the future.

Design and methods

This study used an interpretative methodology. The interpretation was based on student

perceptions of what had been achieved. The constant comparative process was utilized for

collecting and analysing data. The data sources included students’ journals, questionnaires and

interviews. Finally, a grounded theory was derived from the research data.

Results

The following four key elements were identified in the research. First, the majority of students

perceived the teaching–learning process as rich, interesting and superior to traditional science

teaching, and less than a quarter of students regarded the new approach negatively or were confused

by the new approach. Secondly, talk and writing in a collaborative group mutually stimulated

students to construct knowledge for themselves. Writing helped students to talk clearly and

*Centre of Teacher Education, Chung-Yuan Christian University, Chung-Li, 32023, Taiwan,

ROC. Email: jang@cycu.edu.tw

Educational Research, Vol. 49, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 65 – 81

ISSN 0013-1881 (print)/ISSN 1469-5847 (online)/07/010065-17

ª 2007 NFER

DOI: 10.1080/00131880701200781

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constructively, whereas talk helped students to make explicit what was implicit in their writing.

Third, talk and writing facilitated students’ understandings of science concepts and helped them to

generate their explanations. Fourth, students’ attitudes towards learning evolved from being passive

to an active and open-minded attitude. Drawing from these four results, a grounded theory for

social construction was elicited.

Conclusions

A grounded theory for social construction, including both talk and writing strategies being

developed, would be helpful in future science teaching and learning. Hence, the existing teacher

training courses were recommended to incorporate social constructivist teaching strategies, which

stress both talk and writing activities in a collaborative group.

Keywords: Talk in group; Writing to learn; Social construction; Science teaching and

learning; Teacher education

Introduction

The nature of knowledge that is constructed for physical science learning has a great

effect upon the students throughout the time they spend at school. If natural science

is presented to students as a body of knowledge with proven facts and truths, students

focus on memorizing facts and imagine that all knowledge can be ascertained through

specific proof procedures. However, if students experience science as a continuous

process of concept development, an interpretative effort to determine the meaning of

data and a process of negotiating these meanings among individuals, students are

likely to focus on concepts and their variations (Stodolsky et al., 1991).

Traditional science teaching concentrates on the direct transmission of knowledge

or facts from teachers to students and thereby involves non-interactive teaching

activities. The norm of traditional teaching is that teachers explain science concepts to

the whole class, and students are passive receivers, just listening, taking notes and

memorizing the knowledge or facts. Though small-group activities are held from time

to time, they are limited to data collection. And when laboratory activities are adopted

in teaching, students focus on the verification of known laws and law-like

relationships. The outcomes of these activities will match the already determined

truths in these matters (Tobin & Gallagher, 1987; Tobin, 1990; Roth &

Roychoudhury, 1994). Hurd (1991) argues that most students lack the intellectual

skills in science to allow them to adequately assume their roles in society. In science

classes, students are supposed to cultivate scientific patterns of thinking, logical

reasoning, curiosity, openness to new ideas and scepticism in the evaluation of claims

and arguments. The ability to use these skills should provide students with a

mechanism to evaluate and to react to the changing world. Nevertheless, there is little

evidence indicating that science teaching serves students in this regard (National

Research Council, 1996; National Science Foundation, 1996; Wilson & Livingston,

1996; Taylor et al., 2002). These publications recommend that the college faculty

should be moving away from lecture as a means of instruction and increase

opportunities for students to discuss experimental results and issues related to

content and the nature of the discipline.

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The constructivists emphasize forms of language that facilitate students’ meaning

or constructions (Von Glasersfeld, 1988). Language is a means of actually performing

science and constructing scientific understandings; language is also an end, in that it

is used to communicate inquiries, procedures and scientific understandings to other

people, so that they can make informed decisions and take informed actions. Spoken

and written language is most often used to construct, describe and present science

claims and arguments (Yore et al., 2003). The forms such as open-ended questions,

creative writing, students’ explanations and classroom dialogue involve the interactive

and reciprocal use of written and oral languages. Therefore, to assist students in

developing their understandings of science, teachers should provide students with

opportunities to use both written and oral languages in the way that students are able

to represent their current understandings, as well as the processes by which they

develop such understandings.

A good deal of research has also documented that students are active learners,

interacting with teachers or peers within a collaborative learning environment

(Anderson & David, 1993; Palincsar et al., 1993; Roth, 1994; Keys, 1996; Briscoe &

Prayaga, 2004; Gijlers & de Jong, 2005). According to Tobin and Tippins (1993),

scientific knowledge evolves through a process of negotiation and consensus building.

Thus, to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed, in some part the

question becomes one of understanding how knowledge is negotiated or co-

constructed in social settings. Co-construction refers to the process of jointly building

an understanding, as would be characterized by collaborative learning experiences

(see Kittleson & Southerland, 2004):

Collaboration means an active give-and-take of ideas between persons rather than one

person passively learning from the other. Collaborative learning experiences are ones

in which participants discover solutions and create knowledge together. (Damon, 1984,

p. 334)

Notwithstanding, oral and written science communications are multidimensional,

involving language, physical gestures, mathematical symbols and visual adjuncts.

There has been some recognition given to the value of using discussion or writing to

help students construct understandings of science (Wellington & Osborne, 2001;

Ash, 2004). And yet, few studies support the fact that the knowledge should be

constructed through talk as well as writing activities performed in the collaborative

learning group (Gaskins et al., 1994; Rivard & Straw, 2000). The purpose of the

present study was to examine how talk and writing activities construct students’

scientific knowledge in a collaborative learning group. The research question was to

explore the effects combining talk and writing strategies in groups, and to find how

talk and writing affect each other in students’ knowledge construction.

Literature review

The importance of the constructivist approach to science learning lies in its emphasis

on the students’ direct experiences with the physical world and its recognition of the

active construction of meaning that takes place whenever students interact with their

Student knowledge construction of science 67

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environments. In other words, constructivism postulates that knowledge is

constructed on the basis of the particular context in which the cognizing individual

is operating (von Glasersfeld, 1989). Further, each individual integrates new

information with previously held knowledge (Tobin, 1993; Appleton, 1997). Many

researchers in science education recognize that knowledge is socially constructed

(Wellington & Osborne, 2001; Leach & Scott, 2002; Kittleson & Southerland, 2004;

Jang, 2006a,b). For many of these researchers, the role of discourse in shaping what is

viewed as legitimate understanding within a scientific community becomes a crucial

factor in the construction of knowledge. In other words, students can be encouraged

to use discourse to negotiate their way to understanding. This notion of inter-

subjectivity allows ‘the meeting of two minds . . . each operating on the other’s ideas,

using the back-and-forth of discussion to advance his or her own development’

(Rogoff, 1990, p. 149). It also allows for joint thinking, problem-solving and the

process of decision-making, from which the learner appropriates new knowledge

(Newman et al., 1989). In this sense, talk becomes a key component of knowledge

construction and validation. Wellington and Osborne (2001) described several

structured experiences and tasks to support students’ interactions, discussions and

debates. They suggested the use of collaborative concept-mapping activities,

structured critical instances involving common misconceptions and the use of

directed activities related to texts to structure and guide students in small-group

activities and discussions. These tasks appear to help structure oral interactions, focus

discussions, develop explanations and promote conceptual understanding.

In addition to talk, the use of writing to bring about an understanding of content

knowledge is also regarded as an effective teaching tool (Brostoff, 1979; Langer &

Applebee, 1987; Britton, 1989; Yore et al., 2003). Writing engages students in

making connections between themselves and their subjects, as well as in under-

standing the world in which they live (Brostoff, 1979). To assimilate new information

and incorporate it into the existing knowledge, students need to restructure their

knowledge for themselves (Marland & Barnes, 1977). Further, writing helps students

to search memory, form concepts and then forge a new structure of ideas (Langer &

Applebee, 1987). Besides, it is a form of records accessible not only to students but

also to those who are part of the students’ learning community (Fulwiler, 1985).

Patterson (2001) states: ‘The use of writing as a means of developing pupils’

understanding is very rarely considered in schools’ (p. 15). If the emphasis on

broadened conceptions of science literacy is to be achieved, then clearly there has to

be continued research into how best to implement writing as a learning tool to

enhance writers’ knowledge of science and written discourse in science. Traditional

writing tasks in science have centred on such activities as keeping accurate records,

completing laboratory reports, and demonstrating an understanding of concepts for

assessment purposes. These writing tasks do not explicitly place strong emphasis on

students moving beyond the duplication of knowledge (Yore et al., 2003).

Explaining scientific events or phenomena either in writing or speech provides

students with opportunities for content understanding (Fellows, 1994; Rivard, 1994;

Prain & Hand, 1996; Scott & Mortimer, 2002). Writing is used as a tool for personal

construction of knowledge, whereas speech is for social construction of knowledge.

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Speech and writing complement one another (Rivard & Straw, 2000). If talk and

writing are adopted separately, they may not be helpful in the construction of

knowledge (Thaiss, 1988; Olson, 1994). Students need to use oral and written

language to perform science, to construct new understandings of scientific ideas, and

to inform and persuade other people about science (Yore et al., 2001, 2003).

Vygotsky (1978) discussed collaboration within the zone of proximal development.

The zone of proximal development was described as ‘the distance between the actual

development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of

potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance

or in collaboration with more capable peers’ (p. 86). This indicates that students can

perform certain tasks under the supervision of a more capable person that they cannot

perform on their own. From Vygotsky’s perspective, students have different roles

during the learning process. The more capable peer guides the less capable peer

during the learning process. Typically, students work in small groups during learning

activities and they serve as the major resource for each other, sharing and gathering

information as needed and as the teacher acts as a consultant and coordinator. Slavin

(1984) puts forward the idea that success is maximized by the use of cooperative tasks

in which students work together towards a common goal, and cooperative incentives

in which students are rewarded as a group. Rivard and Straw (2000) explored the

interaction among talking, writing and science learning. They found that small-group

discussion in conjunction with structured writing tasks appeared to produce the

highest achievement in a multiple-choice examination covering the target concepts.

They found that talking in support of writing and science learning was especially

helpful for low-achieving students. Kittleson & Southerland (2004) considered that

discourse played a role in how and when the group engaged in concept negotiation.

They found that underlying ideologies and assumptions related to the engineering

discourse played both facilitating and inhibitory roles related to the groups’

conceptually based interactions.

Research methodology

In order to derive valid assumptions concerning the students’ knowledge of

construction through talk and writing activities in the collaborative learning group,

this study used an interpretative methodology, as suggested by Erickson (1986). The

interpretation was based on students’ perceptions of what had been achieved. The

study used journals, questionnaires and interviews. The constant comparative process

was utilized for collecting and analysing data (Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin,

1998). Finally, a grounded theory was derived from the research data (Glaser &

Strauss, 1967).

Participants

The primary researcher with his class of 19 college students participated in this study.

There were eight males and 11 females, ranging in age from 19 to 27 years. These 19

participants were selected for a two-year teacher education programme in the

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Department of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences in the College of Sciences in

this university. All hoped to be future science teachers in secondary schools. In order

to participate in this programme, the students’ academic records must indicate they

had achieved at least 40% in their classes; they had to pass a paper examination which

included basic science concepts and knowledge of education; and they had to pass an

oral examination which included role-play, instant response and ‘vision of education’.

The context of this study was a physical science methods course, being the core

course of the Centre for Teacher Education. It comprised a 16-week, one semester

course which ran for two hours every week. The content of the course focuses on

combining concepts and skills in science and their application to teaching. The goal of

this course is to have preservice teachers participating in group discussion and exercising

writing skills in learning basic science concepts and skills in the class activities, and their

application in their future teaching. Before entering on the course, most of the students

had already taken science to a university level using traditional teaching methods.

The study module

A module entitled ‘Nature science and technology’ was the set text for the course. The

module does not provide all the information and reasoning that would be included in a

standard textbook. There are some gaps that must be filled in by the students. The

reasoning for this approach is that science cannot be learned alone by reading, listening

and memorizing. Development of the capacity to transfer concepts and reasoning

learned from the text to new situations requires learners to be mentally actively engaged.

The module is composed of three components, including text, experiments/activities

and problems. The text is factual, stating the meanings of words, and explanations of

reasoning. The text does not supply answers for some of the important questions raised

in the experiments and exercises. Instead, students are expected to arrive at their own

answers, assisted by discussion with one another and with the instructor. The

experiments and activities are intended as the main vehicles for learning. They contain

concepts or principles embedded within a given scientific procedure that students

follow, investigate and complete. Problems are designed as homework or extra practice

for various materials. The module is designed to be used in an environment in which

there is a great deal of student interaction. The students need to ask questions, to

discuss, compose and interact in the group activities and experiments in order to

acquire the knowledge to solve or complete the set tasks in the exercises.

Procedure of implementation

The procedure of activities in the teaching–learning approach is presented in Table 1.

First, the instructor introduced the topics and class activities. The students were then

asked to read the basic facts and information in the unit and to acquire related ideas

from other resources, such as reference texts and the Internet. Because the questions

raised under each topic of the course could not be answered in any parts of the

module assigned for reading, students were intended to arrive at their answers in

groups through the learning activities. The whole class was divided into six

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collaborative groups. Each group was limited to three or four students and was

heterogeneous in terms of ability, judged according to the students’ general academic

achievement. Collaborative learning thus served as a means for improving student

achievement and cognitive skills. Each of the collaborative student group was

required to use the facilities of the laboratory, doing hands-on activities, discussing

the experiments and recording the laboratory activities in their journals. This

approach corresponded to previous research that contends students are active

learners, interacting with peers within a collaborative learning environment (Palincsar

et al., 1993; Roth, 1994; Briscoe & Prayaga, 2004).

Each student was required to use a notebook as their laboratory journal. The

guideline for journal writing was double-entry, that is students use the right-hand side

for constructing content knowledge, and the left-hand side for reflection on personal

knowledge and recalling thoughts/feelings they had during the process of learning.

The premise in the use of journals was the belief that students learn as they write.

Hence, as the students wrote about a subject, they were empowered to think actively

about the topic, making connections and developing new insights. When one section

of the course was completed, students came together as a whole class to present their

findings. If there were disagreements about the findings or methods, intellectual

autonomy rested with the students themselves, and students were required to

negotiate their differences and work towards achieving a consensus. The role of the

instructor remained non-judgemental and facilitative. Class discussions, at this stage,

provided a forum for students to construct explanations for explaining the reasoning

behind their differences.

Research data

This study made use of three sources of data. The first source was the double-entry

journal that served a twofold purpose. The journal documented the construction,

Table 1. The procedure of activities in the teaching–learning approach

Procedure Content

1. Introduction of topics The instructor introduces the topic in the text, e.g. Mass,

Volume, Density, Electric circuit, Electricity, Computer

technology, etc.

2. Reading assignment Students read the basic facts and information in the units,

and acquire related ideas from other resources, e.g.

reference books and the Internet

3. Collaboration group The whole class is divided into six groups, each group

limited to 3–4 students

4. Activities or experiments The activities or experiments include the major concepts of

the topic and reasoning

5. Discussion and writing Group discussion and journal writing during the activities

6. Presentation Findings are presented to the whole class following the

activities/experiments

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development and reconstruction of knowledge on the right-hand side of the page.

The left-hand side contained each student’s personal accounts of successes, failures,

misunderstandings, frustrations, and so on.

The second source was the questionnaire administered by the instructor at the end

of the course to assess the students’ individual gains from the teaching–learning

process. Each question in the questionnaire has a response scale, ranging from

‘agreement/disagreement and uncertainty’. In addition, there was an open-ended

section after each question for the researcher to examine the reasoning behind

participants’ answers. The questions were designed to cover various aspects of the

writing and talk activities, as follows:

1. Did you like the teaching–learning approach during this semester? If so,

why?

2. Does speaking to your classmates help you write about science knowledge? If so,

how?

3. Does writing help you talk to classmates? If so, how?

4. Do talk and writing activities in groups help you construct science concepts? If so,

how?

5. Was the teaching–learning approach a better way to learn science, compared to

the way that you were taught before? Explain.

6. Please write any comments or suggestions for the class.

The third data source was the end-of-semester interview, with the main purpose of

obtaining a deeper understanding of the students’ conceptions. Six students who

were both willing and able to express their ideas and beliefs were selected from six

different groups. The instructor interviewed two students at the same time to provide

them with an environment in which they could stimulate one another’s thinking

(Bogdan & Biklen, 1992). Based on the information gathered from the interviews,

the researcher expected to: (a) confirm students’ responses to the questionnaire; and

(b) discern possible discrepancies in students’ views as recorded in their journals.

Process of analysis

The investigator first calculated the percentages of the ‘agreement’, ‘disagreement’

and ‘uncertainty’ responses from the questionnaire and developed a coding system

with a word or phrase representing those regularities and patterns discovered. The

process of analysing the qualitative data consisted of the following four steps (Bogdan

& Biklen, 1992): (1) coding and developing temporary coding categories; (2) adopting

the constant comparative process; (3) defining categories and producing assertions;

and (4) eliciting a grounded theory. On forming the temporary coding categories, the

constant comparative method (Strauss, 1987) was adopted, in which new data were

constantly compared with already existing data in defining and organizing

semantically related categories/assertions, and crystallizing their theoretical implica-

tions into a grounded theory. Symbols and related meanings used in our data source

are presented in Table 2.

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Results and discussion

Here we present four assertions and a grounded theory based on the research data.

The grounded theory was designed to elicit and crystallize the theoretical implications

underlying our four assertions.

. Assertion 1: Most students perceived the teaching–learning process as rich and

interesting. Some students disliked or were uncertain about the approach.

This research result (see Table 3) showed that most of the students responded

positively to the question concerning whether they liked or enjoyed the teaching–

learning approach. Some 79% approved the approach, compared to 21% who

disliked it or were uncertain about it. Many students indicated that the design of the

lesson was rich, and that learning became interesting, partly because the talking and

writing activities in collaborative groups helped students to construct meaningful

knowledge; and also, because the ‘hands-on’ experience enabled students to better

understand concepts described in textbooks, rather than simply remember formulas,

numbers, etc. The following quotations are taken from students’ explanations:

Learning became more interesting and meaningful as we arrived at the answers by

ourselves instead of memorizing them. (J5, 22.12.03)

The design of the lesson was rich and interesting. (Q2, 29.12.03)

I like it because it does not emphasize just how to memorize formulas and numbers like

in a traditional class. (Q4, 29.12.03)

Table 2. Data source symbols

Symbol Meaning

Q2, 29.12.03 Representing data from student questionnaire (seat no. 2) and date

I1, 30.12.03 Representing data from student interviews (seat no. 1) and date

J5, 22.12.03 Representing data from student journals (seat no. 5) and date

Table 3. Percentages of student answers in questionnaire

Question Agreement Disagreement Uncertainty

1. Do you like the teaching–learning approach

during this semester?

79 16 5

2. Does speaking to classmates help you write

your science knowledge?

68 16 6

3. Does writing help you talk to classmates? 73 11 16

4. Do talk and writing activities in groups help

you to construct science concepts?

84 11 5

5. Was the teaching–learning approach this

semester better than the traditional way?

73 16 11

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I think the hands-on science class we have in collaborative learning is beneficial and rich.

(I1, 30.12.03)

In previous physical science, I couldn’t understand the electric circuit by listening to the

teachers’ lecturing and doing a few exercises at the end of the class. But now, I know

what an electric circuit is about because of our hands-on experiments. I have actually

seen how an electric circuit works, or doesn’t work, through using the battery, wires and

light-bulb. (I7, 30.12.03)

On the other hand, 21% of the students did not like or were unsure about the

approach. Some students preferred to copy notes from the blackboard and to be given

correct answers. Others indicated that they thought the teaching–learning approach

was time-consuming. But the major concern for these students was the confusion of

ideas and difficulties in journal writing caused by the new approach. The following

quotations are among the students’ expressions:

I don’t know how to write a double-entry journal, since I always have a hard time in

telling right from left. (J8, 23.11.03)

The new possible answer produced from the group discussion confused me, since it was

different from my original answer. (Q5, 29.12.03)

I used to write notes from the blackboard and review them for the test. I needed time to

adjust to this new approach. (Q3, 29.12.03)

Discussing the questions in a group to obtain the answers was time consuming. (I10,

30.12.03)

I think part of the problem is that I have to do some experiments which take a certain

amount of time. Also we need to sit down, talk about the idea, and write our journals.

(I13, 30.12.03)

The ideas put forward by students in the process of discussion often cause confusion

when compared with my previous answer. (I16, 30.12.03)

. Assertion 2: Talking and writing in a collaborative group mutually stimulated

students to construct knowledge for themselves.

The results showed 68% of the students considered speaking to their classmates

helped them with their writing regarding science knowledge construction; 73% also

considered writing would help them in talking to other classmates (Table 3). The

students could then internalize information using both written and oral forms of

language. On the one hand, writing helped students to talk clearly and constructively.

On the other hand, talk helped students to make explicit what was implicit in their

writing. The following quotations are students’ comments on this issue:

The course required lots of speaking and writing. I always started by writing

things down. I put down the things that made sense to me first in my own words.

Then I talked to others to see if it made sense to them. So, the best way of learning

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for me is to write first, then talk and then revise what I have written down. (J4,

20.12.03)

I preferred talk to writing. I always spoke about the idea prior to writing anything down. I

spoke what was in my mind. Writing journals was a version of what I had said. (Q9,

29.12.03)

Sometimes, I try to discuss what I will say, I need to write it down and clarify the issues in

my mind. Then I can talk about it. (I1, 30.12.03)

Other times, I can get down the idea quickly and talk about it later. If the idea is formed

and concrete, then I am able to record it my journal. (I7, 30.12.03)

Students could easily memorize the facts or truths presented by the instructor in

the traditional class without internalizing them. Some students could not put down in

writing or discussion the science concepts they learned from lectures in a constructive

way. However, when some students were required to discuss their understandings in

groups or to write down their thinking in journals, their attention was called to the

construction of knowledge. Consider the following quotations from the interviews:

The traditional class emphasized just how to memorize facts and formulas; I didn’t know

how to discuss with others what I had received in class. (I4, 30.12.03)

Well, I can’t write down things if I don’t understand them in this class. I also had to say

beforehand, try to make sense of it, and then talk about it. (I13, 30.12.03)

I write down the concept first and talk to someone about what is in my head. After

listening to my partner, I may change my way of thinking. I may see his point and be able

to make more sense of what I saw. (I16, 30.12.03)

. Assertion 3: Speaking and writing both made students’ understanding of science

concepts explicit and generated their explanations.

Some 84% of students considered speaking and writing activities in collaborative

groups helped construct science concepts (Table 3). This research component

disclosed that in a group discussion, the students, when confronting different ideas

presented by their classmates, had to either defend their ideas or adopt classmates’

ideas. If they decided to defend their own ideas, they needed to know why they

believed in it, why they did not accept classmates’ ideas and how they could effectively

argue for their ideas. And if they chose to adopt others’ ideas, they were required to

explain it in their own way. Either way, through examining, explaining and writing

down their own understanding of science concepts in detail, students were able to

make their understanding explicit. Some student comments were as follows:

Prior to the group discussions, I thought that the amount of current running through a

battery was always the same, but I was wrong! After the discussion of it in the group, I

understood how the battery current ran in a series and parallel circuits and how its

amount varied depending on the numbers of bulbs in the circuit. (J18, 25.11.03)

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When you are requested to verbalize your idea or convince your partners, you find your

own holes in your logic and others can help you patch these holes up. (J14, 19.12.03)

Talking in groups invited students to present their own ideas on certain science subjects,

and these ideas often helped me to build up my own ideas. (Q12, 29.12.03)

I think the collaborative group helped me verbalize and present the information in a way

in which my partners could understand, because I knew they would ask me to justify

what I was thinking. (I1, 03/12/30)

. Assertion 4: Students’ attitudes towards learning became active and open-minded

in the teaching–learning process.

Most students became active in the learning process. Some 73% of students

considered the teaching–learning approach superior to the traditional way. In the

teaching–learning project, talk and writing activities provided students with

opportunities to explain their understanding to others, rather than passively listening

to lectures. The absence of an instructor as an authority figure in the group discussion

also enhanced students’ willingness to express their misgivings. In turn, talk and

writing activities cultivated students’ mental openness, training students to consider

other views that may be new or better than their own. The following quotations are

students’ descriptions of their views:

In the process the different ideas presented by my classmates provided me with a

different thinking approach. It caused me to think how my ideas fit into it. (J12, 9.11.03)

I was confident during this teaching–learning process. I actively discussed the science

concepts and wrote down my understanding of them in groups, instead of exclusively

relying on teachers’ transmission. (J19, 15.12.03)

If you open yourself to discussion of your idea or question, you invariably learn

something new. (J17, 25.12.03)

Talking and writing activities in groups produced various ideas on a given subject and

thus kept me open-minded. (I13, 30.12.03)

Towards integration: a grounded theory for social construction

On the basis of the above four assertions, a theory for student construction of

knowledge through speaking and writing in a collaborative group was developed

(Figure 1). Students’ knowledge and concepts were gathered through a socially

constructed process. The module included learning activities, experiments and

problems that provided a concrete way for students to see and experience science.

The collaborative group provided the opportunity for discussion and feedback, so

students could build up their science concepts and, at the same time, keep their mind

open to other students’ views. In particular, the process of speaking and writing in a

collaborative group mutually stimulated students to construct knowledge. On the one

hand, writing helped students to speak clearly and constructively. On the other hand,

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speaking helped students to make explicit what was implicit in their writing. In

addition, writing following group discussions also enhanced the aspect of concept

understanding through social interactions.

On the whole, the interpretation through writing and speaking in the collaborative

group formed the social constructive approach for teaching and learning science.

Using this approach, students became more interested and active because the

speaking and writing activities in the collaborative group helped them to construct

meaningful knowledge. It also enhanced students’ understanding of science concepts

and generated their explanations since this process provided students with

opportunities to explain their understanding to others rather than just passively

Figure 1. A grounded theory for the social construction of science concepts

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listening to lecturers. Finally, speaking and writing activities cultivated students’

mental openness, training students to consider that others’ views may be new or

better than their own.

Conclusion

The research result revealed that the majority of students regarded the new teaching–

learning approach as rich and interesting, whereas less than a quarter of students

thought that it caused confusion in learning. As regards the confusion, the researcher

did not consider this a hindrance, but rather an asset to the teaching–learning context.

The diversity of views produced during the teaching–learning process—though

discerned as causing conflict and confusion with previous ideas by a minority of

students—actually enabled students to change their thinking in this study. Due to the

students’ experiencing the traditional direct transmission model, students developed

the habit of taking notes and memorizing facts without casting any doubt on them.

However, as writing and speaking in a collaborative group required students either to

defend their own view or accept others’ views whenever confronting science concept

understandings, not only were students stimulated to make their understanding of the

concept explicit through the reciprocal use of oral and written language, but they also

derived other students’ ideas as explanations in verifying, clarifying, elaborating or

modifying or altering their own understanding. Students’ learning attitudes ceased to

be passive and became active. They became active learners, aware of concept

variation and ready to modify or drop concepts they had previously held. Clearly

these developing abilities may equip students the better to react to today’s changing

world (Cole, 1990; Hurd, 1991; National Research Council, 1996; National Science

Foundation, 1996).

Rivard and Straw (2000) found that writing is used as a tool for the personal

construction of knowledge, whereas talking is concerned with the social construction

of knowledge. They state that talk and writing complement each other, without

elucidating exactly how this comes about. In this study, speaking and writing in a

collaborative group mutually stimulated students in constructing knowledge. Writing

helped students to talk clearly and constructively, whereas talking helped them to

make explicit what had been implicit in their writing. In addition, writing following

group discussions also enhanced the aspect of knowledge construction through social

interaction. A grounded theory of social construction, including both the develop-

ment of speaking and writing strategies, would be helpful for future science teaching

and learning.

Finally, due partly to the absence of a teacher training course on the teaching–

learning approach that this study investigated, and due partly to the lack of an

experience-based social constructivist teaching model, preservice teachers merely

assimilated the new teaching–learning strategies into existing didactic pedagogical

conceptions when required to implement the new teaching–learning approach

(Johnston, 1988; Stoddart et al., 1993). As a consequence, the existing teacher

training courses should incorporate current social constructivist teaching strategies,

which stress both speaking and writing activities in a collaborative group.

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