Patterns of high school students' explanations of their predictions and observations on sound

Abstract

Meaningful learning of science involves the understanding of scientific ideas as they are used for their intended purposes including description, prediction and explanation of phenomena in the natural world. Particularly, explaining phenomena is a fundamental purpose of science. Thus, when students engage in making explanations, they are engaging in a central task of science.
To encourage students to express their ideas and interpretation as they try to explain and understand the world, Ong (1989) and Smith, et al. (1993) expressed the need for an instruction or teaching strategy. A strategy, which concrete experience and scientific thinking, can foster the development of intellectual skills and explanation abilities.
In an attempt to respond to this need, the Predict-Observe-Explain or POE strategy was adopted in this study. The POE process involves showing a class or a student a situation and asking him/her to predict what will happen when some changes are made, giving reasons for the prediction, performing the change and making observations, after which the students explain their observations if different from their prediction. Moreover, the POE is a very good diagnostic technique, very stimulating and interest arousing; it is a very effective way of demonstrating to students that they do have views. It is also a powerful stimulus for discussion (Lacza and Velesrubio, 1990).
However, the effectiveness of the POE in improving students' ability to explain remains to be a continuing investigation. Thus, this study attempted to determine its effectiveness and probe further the thinking of students by documenting their explanations of their prediction, looking for the patterns in the students' explanations and identifying any difference of patterns in these explanations. The researcher believes that students' explanations of their predictions have not been studied. Moreover, this study concentrated on wave motion, particularly the characteristics and properties of sound waves.