Abstracts
Abstract
Education research has shown the importance of helping students develop comprenehsion skills. Explanation-seeking rather than fact-seeking pedagogies have been shown to warrant deeper student understanding. This study investigates the use of Knowledge Forum (KF) in K-6 classrooms (n = 251) to develop students’ explanation skills. To this end, we conducted pre- and post- activity interviews with students who used KF to investigate various topics. Their online collaborative discourse was also analyzed. Our results show that: 1) students’ explanations improved significantly between pre- and post-activity interviews, 2) active KF users scored higher than less active users on the post-activity interviews, and 3) students who had the best written explanations on KF scored much higher on the post-activity interviews even when they had scored much lower than less active students in the pre-activity interviews.
Résumé
La recherche en éducation a montré l’importance d’aider les élèves à développer leur capacité de comprendre. Il a aussi été montré que les pédagogies axées sur l’explication plutôt que sur la mémorisation de faits entrainait chez les élèves une compréhension plus approfondie. Cette étude examine l’utilisation du Knowledge Forum (KF) dans des classes du primaire (n = 251) pour développer la capacité d’explication chez les élèves. À cette fin, nous avons conduit des entretiens avant et après des activités où les élèves avaient utilisé le KF pour investiguer certaines questions. Leur discours collaboratif en ligne a aussi été analysé. Nos résultats montrent que: 1) les explications des élèves se sont améliorées de manière significative entre les entretiens pré et post-activité, 2) les utilisateurs KF actifs ont obtenu des scores plus élevés que les utilisateurs moins actifs lors des entretiens post-activité, et 3) les élèves qui ont écrit les meilleures explications sur le KF ont obtenu des scores plus élevés lors des entretiens post-activité même quand ils avaient obtenu, lors des entretiens pré-activité, des scores beaucoup plus faibles que ceux des élèves les moins actifs.
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Appendices
Biographical notes
Christine Hamel is an associate professor in teacher education at Laval University. Her research interests include elementary school teaching, the analysis of professional practice, and knowledge creation.
Sandrine Turcotte is an associate professor of science education at University of Québec in Outaouais (UQO). Her research interests include scientific inquiry, conceptual change, computer-supported collaborative learning and classroom robotics.
Thérèse Laferrière is Full Professor at the Faculty of Education, Laval University and Director of the Centre of Research and Intervention for Student Achievement and School Success (CRISAS).
Nicolas Bisson practices as a clinical psychologist and collaborates on various research projects as a consultant. His research experience is in quantitative methods. His main works are focused on applying statistical and methodological concepts from the fundamental research in perception of time to everyday contexts.
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Appendices
Notes biographiques
Christine Hamel est professeure agrégée en éducation à l’Université Laval. Ses intérêts de recherche portent sur l’enseignement au primaire, l’analyse de l’activité professionnelle et la création de savoir.
Sandrine Turcotte est professeure agrégée en didactique des sciences et technologie à l’Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO). Ses intérêts de recherche portent sur l’investigation scientifique, le changement conceptuel, l’apprentissage collaboratif et en réseau et la robotique pédagogique.
Thérèse Laferrière est professeure titulaire à la Faculté des sciences de l’éducation de l’Université Laval et directrice du Centre de recherche et d’intervention sur la réussite scolaires (CRIRES).
Nicolas Bisson pratique comme psychologue clinicien et collabore à différents projets de recherche à titre de consultant. Son expérience en recherche se situe au niveau des méthodes de recherche quantitatives. D’ailleurs, ses principaux travaux visaient à appliquer des concepts statistique et méthodologique émanant de la recherche fondamentale en perception du temps à des contextes quotidiens.