Hello-

you can have students working collaboratively in projects, and then ask them to interview each other about their experience. This depends on the age of the students of course. If this type of interview is not possible, you can interview them yourself either individually or in focus groups. You could also video-record their science lessons. A reflection journal that each student, or each group keeps is also a good way to collect data about their perceptions and attitudes. The rest (learning outcomes) can be collected via the regular test/quiz way- unless the science teacher can come up with a more formative, and innovative type of assessment. Good luck!

Dear Maria,

I am looking for ways to collect data about about science learning, but not via the regular test/quiz way. So, thank you very much sharing your thoughts. 

Another possible option would be to have the students help create a class rubric for expected outcomes for each activity or learning expectation. Consider having students score each other, themselves, and then you score them. The use of a rubric will help build background knowledge by including the essential vocabulary for the lesson or activity. There are lots of possible options out there on the internet to look for ideas to get yourself started. Good luck!

Indeed, the best place might be right at the elementary education institutions in collaboration with Principles and Teachers. However, the formulation of proper survey questionnaire is critical to make sure that the research is valid and valuable.

It is important to specify that there will have no control group.

Interesting question! Thanks for bringing it up for consideration.  My research team and I have had success in our studies of teaching and learning in elementary science by collecting meaningful data from learners (and from their teachers) by including drawing prompts in their regular instruction. The data collection adds to their instruction in a non-disruptive way that promotes creativity.  The learners enjoy being asked to draw to prompts such as, "Draw what you know about [fill-in]" and on the back of your sheet "Describe what you hoped viewers of your drawing would see in your drawing."  You can find more information about this data method on our website, www.drawnToScience.org. Best, Randy McGinnis

Hi Jean Philipe,

I would suggest a combination of the following:

1-Non participant observation notes: Qualitative data of recorded conversations of students working in pairs and/or groups if they are undertaking such activities during the lessons.

2-video analysis of practical application tasks of learning aims per pupil or pair of pupils

3-Analysis of a question and answer video taped session where you ask targeted questions and pupils respond.

I am suggesting these because a questionnaire is not always the best tool with the youngest children and may disadvantage those pupils with literacy issues.

Thank you for sharing your method J. Randy Mcginnis. Drawing is not always enough to make some conclusions, but to ask learners to describe their drawing is a very interesting idea. I'll go on your website.

Dear Jean- Philippe

It depends upon what type of learning task/ lesson you give to your students. If you take students to a pond and ask them to observe the species and draw their sketches in their notebooks you can prepare a rubric on number of species reported by the each student and  on sketch drawn by everyone. You can take students to an agriculture farm and ask students to take the interview of farmer  on different agriculture practices such as sowing,  irrigating harvesting  on the basis of information to be sought developed under your guidance. You can take to  some small -scale industry which works on technology based on scientific principles related to the science curriculum of that level. you can test their learning on the basis of report on the interview.

R S SINDHU - profrssindhufansclub.wordpress.com   

In fact R.S. Sindhu, the teachers will be free to fix their own learning objectives during the science lessons occurring outdoors, they won't have all the same scientific content to teach, and they will be asked to stay in their school's immediate environment.

Thank you for sharing your thought!

A fascinating question! I my opinion, a useful and practical method to collect data from elementary students is qualitative method. You could use a mixture of both class observations and face to face interviews. 

Thank you Abdullah Norri. Face to face interviews is an option. However, it may difficult to comments on students' learning with class observation. What is your experience or opinion about that?

I have found it useful. For instance, when I used to teach elementary school students, I would give them something to write about, and I would go around the class and observe how each student was doing. I used a rubric where I was looking at my students hand writing, spelling, sentence structure, etc. 

Jean,

Page Keeley has authored several books in which she describes a broad range of formative assessment probes for science and mathematics learning. You can find many of those books at http://uncoveringstudentideas.org/. One benefit of these probes is that many of them allow you to assess students without them "feeling" like they are being assessed. A benefit of these probes for researchers is that they provide a basic format or template that can be modified depending on the specific content that you wish to assess.

http://uncoveringstudentideas.org/

Yes, I agree with Mutegi

Hi Jean,

The usual is still a paper and pencil examination, but this is very limited. I think, individual and or group interviews using questions that measures your learning objectives should be great. Also, taking a video of the entire teaching and learning process maybe helpful, you can examine and look for behaviors/actions that maybe an evidence of learning or absence of learning. 

I was also thinking of a small in-class project (CREATE) but you will need to develop a rubric to assign points for the output. Although personally I have not done this, but I think this is helpful because kids like action and being actively involved. 

All the best. 

I would love to know more about your research, its implementation and results. 

Sincerely,

Ian

I agree that qualitative is the way to go. Depending over how long a time your project spans, you might want to consider a portfolio method with self assessment built in. Then you can always follow up with interviews where the students talk about their portfolios.  A holistic way of looking at learning.

Observation

Interview

Teacher Interview

Parent Interview

Foussed Group Discussion

So research will be qualitative using triaangulation

In projects on elementary students' learning processes, the most challenging decisions concern the ways of collecting data (i.e., what kind of data?) from the children. I think your question pertains to this aspect of the study.

You might want to consider collecting visual images from the students, i.e., the drawings where the children depict their science learning experience(s). I personally think this way to collect data is preferable to conducting interviews with or surveys among children, as these two approaches might not yield reliable data.   

The children drawings could be analyzed as visual narratives. (You also might want to ask the students to supply a short explanation about their pictures). An extensive literature on analyzing such visual data (but mostly, thus far, on adults' drawings) will give you some hints as to how to analyse your own data. This could be a valuable contribution of your study.

Good luck!  

Dear Jean-Philippe

I have studied learning among children using a method called Learning situations. The children took photos of learning situations. The photos were used as "door-openers" in focus group interviews. The children in the interviews gathered around each picture to discuss  - e.g.  "What made you take this picture?"; "What makes it a learning situation?" 

Photos and interviews in combination gives an interesting input to the question of how the students learn. And, when you present your research findings with both pictures and quotes it becomes interesting reading of your research.

Best regards

Lars

Schoolkids may feel more comfortable trying to explain science to a peer rather than to an adult, so you could set up a pairwork activity where each pupil has to explain a scientific topic to the other. These encounters and exchanges could be videoed for qualitative data and you could assign values (points) to specific words that would need to be mentioned in order to `score`.

I think observation is the best way to observe the understanding of the student in learning concept in science.. Give them the structured question from lower level (knowledge & understanding) to higher level question (apply & analysing /evaluating).. Video tape the session during their process in answering question to find their understanding and must have rubric to evaluate their learning process.  That is my suggestion. 

I agree with Dr Hodgson up to a point. I also think that children enjoy explaining things they know very well to anyone including adults. 

Students' ability to use language is central to learning, so they must be able to talk about their science, not just demonstrate it. From my perspective, you need to know what language makes them sound authoritative (at an elementary level). That means the use of technical terms like insect larvae, stem, absorbing. If they're explaining, (i.e. sequencing in time, and cause and effect) then you would be looking for words like 'because..., so..., then..., after that..., if..., and that's why...'. You are looking for the focus to be on science, rather than personal, so subjects other than 'I' and 'You' at the beginning of sentences e.g. 'This is a beetle. It has three parts', rather than 'Well, i found this little bug and i think it's really pretty'.

Of course this will also tell you  how much attention the teacher has paid to language and how much she/he has left the students to try to take on new knowledge with the vocabulary they already had before they started. 

Hi Jean-Philippe,

Learning is a broad concept. Perhaps you need to clarify that a bit more. You would like to find out what students know and understand about whatever science topic the teacher is doing, according to whatever objectives the teacher has set for learning in an outdoor school context. You do not want to use a quiz / test. Therefore you want observational, qualitative data? If it's outdoor learning the students may be observing or describing something or doing something (procedural). What measure of learning are you interested in? For example, I am looking at writing in science and will use Systemic Functional Linguistics to analyse student writing samples to look for evidence of development reflected in their language choices to perform science processes such as describing and explaining. What counts as learning / knowing for you in your study? This will determine what kind of data you need to collect. It may be writing samples, oral language, drawings etc. Students may need to do something in that outdoor setting. Will you have case study individuals? How will you be able to say they know something? Will you do a pre-test / pre-observation? Are you interested in the effectiveness of the pedagogy? Or the impact of the outdoor setting for learning? The best way to collect science data for your study will depend on the answers to these questions.

Good luck with your research.

Regards,

Emma

Hi Jean-Philippe!

I think it would be a good idea to look in the work of Chantal Barriault, from the Science North centre in Sudbury. She developed a tool to assess learning in visitors in a science museum (which is used in many science centers by now). Although it is not in class, the type of environment may be similar as in outdoor settings. Maybe you could adapt her tool to your specific needs? She also adapted the tool for zoos and aquaria in her dissertation, which she did with Léonie Rennie. Here is the link to her contributions: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chantal_Barriault/contributions

Keep me posted if you find it relevant to your work!

Good luck!