Categorising students' evaluations of evidence and explanations about climate change
by Doug Lombardi; Elliot S. Bickel; Carol B. Brandt; Colin Burg
International Journal of Global Warming (IJGW), Vol. 12, No. 3/4, 2017

Abstract: Just as scientists evaluate explanations of climate change, students should also engage in critically evaluative practices when studying global warming. The purpose of the present study was to investigate middle school students' evaluations when they examined different explanations for the causes of climate change. We observed four distinct categories of evaluation in student explanations about how evidence texts related to climate change models: a) erroneous evaluation; b) descriptive evaluation; c) relational evaluation and d) critical evaluation. These findings allow us to better understand and recognise types of student thinking, so that we may be able to better implement instruction that promotes critical evaluation about climate change and other complex scientific topics, as is called for by recent science education reform efforts.

Online publication date: Thu, 29-Jun-2017

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Global Warming (IJGW):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com