Instructional Technology Monographs

My study was about writing in science. Where does writing fit into the science curriculum? In a public school system in the southeastern United States, specific writing objectives are not currently included in the eighth grade science curriculum. Writing in science class as a technique to learn science is not explored; whereas, writing to practice for the state’s eighth grade writing assessment has been frequently addressed. School administrators want students to practice writing across the curriculum without considering the amount of instruction time it consumes. It is an important goal for students to practice correct grammar and punctuation, but science students must convey scientific understanding to their peers, teachers, and science community. Writing in science could accomplish both goals simultaneously, as well as, maximizing the use of classroom instructional time.

Why is it important for students to be able to communicate to their peers, teachers, and the science community using scientific processes accurately and consistently? Historically, scientific miscommunication has had disastrous effects. For example, in April 1912, the Titanic, publicized as unsinkable, made its only sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. Eight different ships warned the Titanic of icebergs, but all warnings went unheeded. Through miscommunication, most of the warnings never made it into the hands of the proper crew members (Titanic, n.d.). A more modern example, the Challenger explosion in January 1986 was the result of miscommunication between Morton Thiokol engineers, who built the space shuttle, and the program administrators at National Aeronautical Space Association (NASA). Concerns over the reliability of the O-rings at low temperatures were never adequately addressed. It was believed that external memos written by Brian Russell, an employee of Morton Thiokol, were less harsh and only stated facts without any scientific explanation of the importance of the problem (Silagyi, n.d.).

Eighth grade students at the Rudyard Middle School (pseudonym) do a significant amount of writing in preparation for the state’s middle grade writing assessment given in January. All eighth graders must pass this test to be promoted to the ninth grade. The students take three mock writing tests, where practice is mainly for grammar and style. According to Rivard (1994), students that write a significant amount do not increase their learning, but the students that specifically use writing-to-learn strategies such as expository writing skills, effectively improve their learning.

Tierney (2004) writes that expressive writing allows the student to take ownership of the material therefore understanding and retaining the material increases. The act of putting thoughts on paper helps to create ideas the writer did not previously possess. It is my premise that students who write and reflect about science concepts will have a better understanding of science and as a result increase their learning.

Writing in science is a practical research problem to study, due to the administrators’ emphasis for teachers to have students writing in all classes. However, if the students are going to write in class, then the writing should be of benefit to them. Class time is a valuable resource, already shortened by testing days and extra-curricular school activities. I propose that the students should write for two reasons: (1) for the benefit of practicing to write for the writing test, and (2) for increased understanding in science. This research concentrated on students’ reflection through expository or expressive writing activities as a means for increasing their science understanding.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects on student achievement when requiring the students to reflect daily in a notebook on the science concepts discussed in class. The students in this study were the 87 eighth grade students that I taught at Rudyard Middle. I hypothesized the following:

This study was constrained to 87 eighth grade students at a suburban middle school in the southeastern United States. The school’s population was approximately 1,800 students. Nearly all students are proficient English speakers, although some are not native English speakers. The study excluded those students enrolled in gifted science. The control group included 97 eighth grade students from another academic team at Rudyard Middle. The study took place during the first nine-week grading period of the 2005-2006 school year, which was from August 15 to October 6, 2005.

The eighth grader participants in this study were students whom I taught daily. It is possible some bias in the study existed as a result of my previous knowledge of the group, as well as a greater familiarity with some of the participants than others. Did my role influence their grade on the post-test? Due to school requirements and time constraints, this study was conducted using a multiple-choice exam for the pre and post-test. A better choice would have been a writing assessment.

Little information has been gathered about reflective writing in a science class (Keys, 2000, Hargrove & Nesbit, 2003). The purpose of this study was to explore a portion of writing in science by focusing on students’ reflective writing strategies in science class. The intent of this study was to provide more insight into the subject of reflective writing and how it can improve student learning in science.

The participants consisted of 87 eighth graders. Forty-eight percent were female and 52% were male. The demographics of the participants included 39% Hispanic, 41% Black, 11% White, 7%, Asian, and 2% Multiracial. The participants closely reflected the school population, which was 37% Hispanic, 40% Black, 10% White, 10% Asian, and 3% Multiracial.

The research involved the collection of several sets of data. First, a closed-ended survey was given to the participants in August 2005, then again in October 2005, to determine if the students’ attitudes improved or did not improve toward writing in science. A second set of data was collected by administering a pre-test to the participants prior to beginning the research study and the science unit. In October, a post-test covering the science concepts taught in class was administered to the participants and the control group. Finally, a delayed post-test was administered October 31, 2005 to the participants to measure how well the students retained the information from the unit.

The research question for this project is: What is the impact on student achievement of increasing writing in the science classroom? The material reviewed for this research project will cover strategies used in teaching writing in science.

Literature describing several models and strategies intended to improve science learning were reviewed. Whereas students do write much of the time, if they are not using “writing-to-learn strategies” (Rivard, 1994, p. 975) such as expository writing, which includes note taking, and summarizing they are not improving their learning. Even the use of expressive writing, such as journal writing and diaries can be helpful (Rivard, 1994). Studies that Rivard (1994) reviewed showed that 90% of the students participating in a writing assignment in a physics class said that it had enhanced their knowledge of physics concepts.

Based on Rivards’ (1994) assertion that students need to be given an opportunity in science classes to explain, discuss, and reflect on what they learn, Prain and Hand (1996) wrote a guide to help teachers in planning and writing tasks for junior high and middle school science topics. These writing tasks, in which Prain and Hand (1996) acknowledge there remains considerable discussion, will help the secondary school student learn science.

To further support the implications of writing-for-learning, Prain and Hand (1996) propose a broad model for writing-to-learn in science. They listed several different types of support, including, (1) narratives; (2) travelogues; (3) poetry; (4) scripts; (5) concept maps; (6) scientific and verbal reports; (7) brochures; (8) journal writing; (9) letters; and (10) explanatory writings. Narratives are stories that show knowledge of a process. Travelogues describe particular places. Scripts are used in persuasive writings for debates or role-playing. Concepts maps are charts or drawings that review processes. Brochures are written to be used as guides. Letters help with persuasive writing; explanatory writing is written to help explain diagram captions (Prain & Hand, 1996).

The writing-for-learning model (Prain & Hand, 1999) was implemented in a science classroom to determine student perceptions of the model. If the writing-for-learning strategies being implemented were to work, then the model would require changes in how the students engage in learning as well (Prain & Hand, 1999). Student perceptions of scientific writing have been overlooked, except when assessing the effectiveness of different learning strategies. Prain and Hand’s (1999) research concentrated on examining writing-for-learning strategies in secondary schools. Their focus was on identifying any of the changes the students had in learning science emanating from the writing-for-learning model.

The students in the study (Prain & Hand, 1999) were exposed to the following tasks: brochures; letters; newspaper articles; the construction of posters; concept maps, and computer slide show presentations. The authors maintained that “diversifying writing tasks has a positive influence on the students’ attitude to science in general” (Prain & Hand, 1999, p. 155).

Ediger (2000) and Walders (2000) both suggest poetry writing as one method to reveal what has been learned by the student in the science classroom. Poetry relates to creative intelligence, thus, the student can become more proficient in problem solving through its incorporation, because poetry helps the student to seek solutions in “novel ways in problematic situations” (Ediger, 2000, p. 1). Keys (1999), however, stated that creative writing takes away from instructional time in the science classroom and distracts the students’ focus away from science learning. A different approach to using poetry in the classroom could be as reinforcement or as a review tool, which would compliment the needed instructional time.

A different approach to writing in science was reported by Keys, Hand, Prain, and Collins (1999) where they investigated the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) as a writing tool to improve science laboratory investigations. The SWH connects the traditional laboratory report with various styles of writing that promote construction of meaning. It is a tool to be used by both the teacher and student to encourage the understanding of laboratory investigations. SWH is divided into two components: teacher template and student template (Keys, et al., 1999, p. 1067). The teacher template suggests activities that involve the student in “thinking, writing, reading, and discussing” (Keys, et al., 1999, p. 1067) activities in the laboratory. The student template assists the student in developing explanations with other students (Keys, et al., 1999).

Positive aspects of the SWH model were also reported by Rudd, Greenbowe, and and Legg (2001) who did a study with the SWH model in which they replaced the normal lab report with a modified SWH student template. The results of the study indicate that the written explanations given by the students were much better regarding “descriptive and statistical results” (Rudd, et al., 2001, p. 1685). The outcomes of their study adds to the evidence from previous studies (Keys et al., 1999) that the SWH does facilitate student efforts toward connecting laboratory work to understanding science.

Research in writing in science includes studies about single writing tasks, such as a strategy that examined collaborative writing in a ninth grade general science class. Keys (1994) found that paired student group collaborative writing tasks improved their ability to construct meaning, formulate new models, and make clearer and more explicit comparisons. Students became better at expressing their science related thoughts, both written and oral. Moreover, the report found that the creation of a written product is a more desired method of instruction because it gives a clearer understanding of the concept being studied.

Lab reporting. Good results have also been obtained by the use of structured writing during the composition of laboratory reports by eighth grade science students. According to Keys (2000), the act of writing the lab reports specifically promoted new learning and interpretations for the majority of the students.

Web-based writing. Web-based activities have also shown to improve student learning. Boxie and Maring (2002) report on a study in which students worked through email with a university “cyberbuddy” encouraging them to use the Know-Want-Learn literacy strategy (KWL). Students reacted positively to the interaction through email. There was increased motivation and increased student performance when students wrote using computers. The increase in student performance resulted in an overall score of “96%” (Boxie & Maring, 2002, p. 107) on an assessment measuring student writings.

Expressive writing. In Write to Learn Science , Tierney and Dorrah (2004) suggests the solution to helping students to find their own discovery and understanding of the science concept. Expressive writing is the “writing one uses to think through a problem” (Tierney & Dorroh, 2004, p. 2).

Portfolios. Successful teaching strategies that Tierney (2004) used in his classroom were exit cards, fast write paragraphs, smile reviews, lab write–ups, and student research papers. Exit cards are index cards in which the student has written down their answer to a teachers question at the end of class. Therefore, to exit the class the answer must be written on the card and turned in. Fast write paragraphs are short paragraphs written by the student in the last five minutes of class. Simile reviews uses the student imagination to find out what they understand. Tierney (2004) also used portfolios in his science classes, and reported that this strategy helped students: connect to their work; link to critical thinking; and become reflective learners.

Science notebooks. Hargrove and Nesbit (2003) write that the use of science notebooks shows notable increases on standardized test scores in science, reading, and writing. Campbell and Fulton ( 2003) describe the science notebook as “a record of students’ findings, questions, thoughts, procedures, data, and wonderings” (p. 1) that record the students experiences while in the science class.

Campbell and Fulton (2003) also provide evidence supporting student learning using science notebooks, stating that the teacher can read the notebook and follow the students’ processes. However, the length of the writing does not necessarily reflect student knowledge, as some students write without processing the data.

Science notebooks “build on science content and process skills similar to the way scientists work” (Campbell & Fulton, 2003, p. 1). Hargrove and Nesbitt (2003) contend that science notebooks increase writing achievement simply because writing time is increased. Science writing should have purpose behind it. The use of science notebooks provided students with an authentic reason to write in science, to communicate ideas, and to reflect on their ideas before sharing them with others (Campbell & Fulton, 2003).

In summary, since Rivard (1994) first reported that traditional writing in science classes was not working, there have been many alternative applications of science writing research (Hand et. al, 1999, Boxie & Maring, 2002; Keys et . al., 1999). Hands-on and inquiry science are good techniques to use in science classrooms, but students need to go further to make the connection between the content and reflection on that content. Because a student is able to pass a multiple choice or true/false assessment in class, and thus illustrating knowledge acquisition, does not ensure content mastery. Reflecting and communicating ideas has been shown to increase the retention of knowledge (Rivard, 1994; Hand, et al., 1999; Hand, et al., 2002; Keys, 1994; Keys, 2000). Reflection can be sought in many formats including posters, brochures, and others without requiring formal writing. The writing-to-learn model (Prain & Hand, 1999) and the SWH model (Rudd, et al., 2001 and Keys et al., 1999) also respond to Rivards’ negative view that writing in science has rarely shown improvement in science learning. Thus this study seeks to apply one of the various strategies reviewed in the research literature to improve science learning in the science class. This study sought to investigate the strategy of having students use reflective writing in science and how this strategy may increase student achievement.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects on student achievement when requiring the students to reflect daily in a notebook on the science concepts covered in class. I hypothesized the following:

The study was conducted using a quasi-experimental design. A pre-test and post-test were designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment. A post-test only control group design was administered to determine if the treatment of the participants was valid. I also reviewed Criterion Reference Competency Test (CRCT) scores from the 2004-2005 school year to determine any significant differences between the participants and control group. A survey was used to gather attitudinal data from students about science and writing.

The participants included in this study were 87 eighth grade students, between the ages of 13 to 17 years old. The demographic breakdown of the students participating in the study was as follows: 35 were Black (41%); 34 of the students were Hispanic (39%); 10 were White (11%); 6 were Asian (7%); and 2 were Multiracial (2%). The group was further broken down from the original group of 87 students into the following categories: six participants received special education services (7%); two participants were retainees (2%); and eight participants had recently been exited from ESL (9%).

The control group consisted of 97 eighth grade students, between the ages of 13 to 15 years old. The demographic breakdown of the control group was as follows: 43 were Black (43%); 38 were Hispanic (38%); 10 were White (10%); 7 were Asian (7%); and 2 were Multiracial (2%). The control group was further broken down into the following categories: three participants received special education services (3%); four participants were retainees (4%); and six participants had recently been exited from ESL (6%).

The middle school used in this study was one of 16 middle schools in a large suburban school district in the southeastern United States. The school district served approximately 128,000 students in the 2004-2005 school year. This middle school serves approximately 1,800 middle grade students in grades six through eight in the current 2005-2006 school year. The demographic distribution is illustrated below in Figure 1.

The general trend from 2001 to 2005 for the student population at this middle school a slight increase in Black and Hispanic populations with a declining White population. The Asian population remained constant. The percentage of students receiving free and reduced lunches is shown in Figure 2. The school maintains a 95% attendance rate.

A survey consisting of ten questions was developed to determine student attitudes about science and writing (see Appendix A).

Pre-test and post-test assessments were created using the Prentice Hall Earth Science test generator (Padilla, Miaovlis, & Cyr, 2003). The pre-test and post-test consisted of forty multiple-choice questions covering a range of topics from Unit 6.

At the beginning of the 2005-2006 school year, a survey was given to the students to determine their attitude toward science and writing. Next, a pre-test was administered to the students. The test was created using the test generator from the course textbook.

The participants were given time at the beginning of each class to reflect daily in their reflection journal on science concepts covered in the previous class. A post-test was given to the participants and control group at the conclusion of Unit 6. A delayed post-test was administered to the students approximately one month after the post-test.

I have been teaching eighth grade Earth Science for five years. I previously, had three years teaching science at the high school level. Other work experience includes working as a geologist with an environmental firm for seven years. I feel very qualified to teach Earth Science and am very disappointed that some students do not feel Earth Science is necessary. I would like to find a way to motivate them and to increase their learning about the subject.

The data were analyzed to determine if reflective writing in science class had increased student achievement, increased retention rates, and had improved attitudes toward writing in the science class. The data that were collected and tabulated included CRCT science subtest scores from the 2004-2005 school year, pre and post-test results and pre and post surveys about student attitudes.

A comparison of the students CRCT scores from the participants and from the control group were collected from the school’s database. The students CRCT science scores from the seventh grade (2004-2005) school year were tabulated using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (see Appendix B). The mean, mode, median, and standard deviation were calculated for both groups.

Two types of performance assessments were administered in this study. The first was a pre-and post-test given to the participants. The mean, standard deviation, maximum, and minimum were tabulated using Microsoft Excel (see Appendix C). A standard t-test was calculated to determine if any significant difference between the two means existed. A post-test only was given to the control group to compare the effects of the treatment (reflective writing) on the participants. The mean, standard deviation, maximum, and minimum were tabulated for both groups. A standard t-test was calculated to determine any significant differences between the two groups. Approximately four weeks after the post-test the participants were asked to take an unannounced delayed post-test on the same material. The purpose of the delayed post-test was to see if the reflective writing helped the students retain information longer. The mean, standard deviation, maximum, and minimum were tabulated for the delayed post-test.

A survey was used to gather information from the students about their attitude toward science and writing prior to and following the study. The survey included ten close-ended questions (see Appendix A). A numerical value was assigned to each response and tabulated in Microsoft Excel. The numerical values were used to calculate frequencies and percentages. Questions 1 through 5 were Yes/No questions. The Yes responses were coded with the number 1 and the No responses were coded with the number 2. Questions 6 through 10 were Likert Scale questions. The response Strongly Agree was coded as 1, Agree coded as 2, Neutral coded as 3, Disagree coded as 4, and Strongly Disagree as 5. The response frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation was calculated for each survey question. The results were tabulated in a Microsoft Excel table (see Appendix D).

The results of the study are organized and presented in the following order: CRCT scores; pre and post-test results; delayed post-test; post-test results from the participants and control group; and survey results.

The table below shows the CRCT science subtest scores for the participants and control group. The highest score that can be achieved on a CRCT is 450. The data indicate that the participants (M=329, SD=23) were in a similar range with the control group (M=323, SD=21). The CRCT scores indicated that the participants and control group were similar in academic achievement.

The results from the study show that the post-test scores (M=87.48, SD=14.31) were higher than the pre-test scores (M=40.75, SD=11.60). The results are tabulated in Table 2. A delayed post-test was administered four weeks after the post-test. The mean for the delayed post-test (M=81.19, SD= 8.03) decreased 6.29 points from the post-test score (M=87.48, SD=11.60). A t-test was performed between the pre-test and delayed post-test and the results indicated a significant difference between the two groups, p<0.05.

The gain score, the increase in the post-test score from the pre-test score, shows an increase with a mean of 46.74 and a standard deviation of 14.02. The results are tabulated below in Table 3. The maximum gain was 80 for a student and the minimum gain was 3.

A t-test using pre and post-test data indicate a significant difference between groups scores, p< 0.05.

A control group of students (N=97) were given the same post-test as the participants (N=87). The post-test for both groups was 10% of their first nine-week grade. The participants scored higher (M=87.48, SD=14.31) than the control group (M=60.72, SD=16.12). The maximum grade scored for the participants and control group was 100 and 96, respectively. The minimum grade scored between both groups was 38 and 12. The results are tabulated below in Table 4. The t-test results between the participants and the control group indicate a significant difference between the two groups, p < 0.05.

A closed-ended survey (see Appendix A) consisting of ten questions about students attitudes toward writing and science was administered to the participants in August 2005 and again in October 2005. The pre-survey sample consisted of 86 eighth graders that completed the pre-survey and 68 eighth graders that completed the post-survey.

The survey consisted of five yes or no questions and five multiple answer questions. The results of Questions 1 through 5 are shown in Figure 3. The percentages were calculated for the responses to questions 1 through 5, which were yes or no questions. Figure 3 illustrates the yes response to the pre-survey and post-survey. The graph indicates that the student responses were less favorable after the study, except for Question 2, which asked, “Do you know what reflection or reflecting means?” The attitudes were less favorable toward writing and science after the study.

The results of survey Questions 6 through 10 are summarized in below Table 5. The initial responses were coded as Strongly Agree as 1, Agree as 2, Neutral as 3, Disagree as 4, and Strongly Disagree as 5. The frequency and percentages were then calculated and tabulated for each response (see Appendix D).

The student attitudes toward writing decreased between the pre-survey to the post-survey, except for Question 10 in which the response “Writing helps me to learn” shows a favorable response. The post-survey findings show that the students were less favorable to topics that directly dealt with science or related to science. The participants were less favorable to liking science, writing or even reflecting on science. And they were very definite about science not being their favorite subject even before the study began.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects on student achievement when requiring the students to reflect daily in a journal on science concepts covered in class. I hypothesized the following:

The first of three research questions addressed by this study was: If reflective writing is done in science class, then the participants will perform better on the post-test after the treatment and perform better than those students not doing reflective writing in science class. Within the constraints of this study, the participants who did the reflective writing performed better on the post-test and also performed better than the control group on the post-test. One question that could be raised about the study is whether the difference might have been caused by a difference in the instruction of the two groups. It was not practical in this study to split the teacher’s students into two different groups (participants and control group).

The results of this study indicate that reflective writing in science class did improve student achievement. The participants’ pre and post-test scores were compared to the control group and the results showed positive gains for the participants in comparing post-test scores between two groups. The participants also made positive gains on the pre and post-test results. These findings would indicate that reflective writing is important in assisting students in learning science. Meaning that students can learn much by putting their thoughts on paper. Past research (Rivard, 1994) has shown that students need to do more than just write to improve their grammar, and expressive writing assists in achieving this goal.

On the other hand, the study could not distinguish between the students learning activities (labs, note taking, reading, and homework) and that of the reflective writing. The findings only show that student achievement increased during the time reflective writing incorporated into the lesson.

The second research question was: If the students show an improvement in science, then their attitudes should improve toward writing and science. Within the parameters of this study, the student’s attitudes did not show an improvement toward writing and science. The questions raised here are: Why not? Could it have made a difference in the study if the researcher was not also their teacher? Other than initially informing the students about the study at the beginning of the school year, I did not mention that the reflective writing had another purpose. The students in my opinion did not make a connection between their increased test scores and to the survey questions and responded accordingly to a survey on writing.

The findings of the survey results showed no increase in positive student attitudes about writing in science. There was a strong positive gain in post-test grades, but a negative trend in student attitudes after the post-test. Hand et al. (1999) indicated that student achievement increases with various writing strategies, but little mention if any was made regarding student attitudes. I place the lack of improved attitudes from the students on their lack of connecting their post-test scores with the reflective writing.

The third research question was: If reflective writing is done in science class, then the students will demonstrate retention of the material on a delayed post-test. The findings of this study indicated that the participants demonstrated retention of the material. A question that could be raised as to how long the students will retain the material; is there a significant loss over time. The limitations of this study could not address this concern. Another question raised is whether the control group would demonstrate retention of the material. Again, this was not considered in the study, but could be considered for further study.

The finding of this study indicated that reflective writing assists with the retention of material. The delayed post-test that was administered four weeks after the post-test showed significant retention of the material. The average delayed post-test scores dropped 6.29 points. It is important that students retain as much information as possible to have passing scores on mandatory state exams, such as the CRCT, in April. The delayed post-test was a surprise for the students and their delayed post-test scores indicate that the post-test scores were reliable.

Writing in science class is important for helping students understand science. Students should be able to communicate successfully to their teacher and peers their understanding of the material. Therefore, students should learn to write for science learning, not only for practice of grammar and usage. My research project investigated the effects of reflective writing in science class. Reflective writing is one of many strategies reported in literature reviews that show an increase in student achievement (Rivard, 1994, Hand & Prain, 1999). My research questions hypothesized that achievement, attitude, and retention would improve among the students participating in the study. Results of the study indicated that achievement and retention improved, but attitude did not. Valid questions brought forward after the study suggest that further study is needed to define whether student achievement resulted from reflective writing or from regular classroom instruction.

Recommendations for future study should further define the best possible strategy for writing in science. I would recommend that a similar study be investigated where the instructor teaches both the participants and the control group, so that it would be easier to determine the effectiveness of the study. Further study should also include more frequent assessments, perhaps weekly assessments to compare pre and post-assessment data.

Another recommendation for the future study of reflective writing should investigate the strategies mentioned in the literature review (Rivard, 1994, Hand & Prain, 1999). These writing strategies included: brochures; lab notebooks; journals; travelogues; and narratives. It would be of interest to determine if one strategy works best or if a combination of strategies would be a better fit for our student’s different learning styles.

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Questions 5 Do you think taking time to reflect on science concepts in science class will improve your grade?