Kennesaw State University DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University Doctor of Education in Secondary Education Department of Secondary and Middle Grades Dissertations Education Fall 10-25-2017 The ffecE tiveness of Model-Based Instruction on Student Achievement and Student Metacognition in Advanced Chemistry Classes Amanda Edwards Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/seceddoc_etd Part of the Science and Mathematics Education Commons Recommended Citation Edwards, Amanda, "The Effectiveness of Model-Based Instruction on Student Achievement and Student Metacognition in Advanced Chemistry Classes" (2017). Doctor of Education in Secondary Education Dissertations. 11. http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/seceddoc_etd/11 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Secondary and Middle Grades Education at DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctor of Education in Secondary Education Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Effectiveness of Model-Based Instruction on Student Achievement and Student Metacognition in Advanced Chemistry Classes by Amanda D. Edwards Doctoral Candidate A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School October 25, 2017 Dr. Michelle Head, chairperson Dr. Kimberly Cortes Dr. Nita Paris Kennesaw State University i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This journey to completing this degree would not have been possible without my dissertation committee. My sincerest thanks are given to my dissertation chair, Dr. Michelle Head for her ability to always find the positive and to guide me, encourage me, and drag me (when necessary) toward all that was needed to finish this work. I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Kimberly Cortes, especially for her help with the quantitative analyses of my data. Your input was invaluable. Additionally, thank you to Dr. Nita Paris for renewing my passion for teaching and learning, for serving as a mentor, for constantly advocating for me, and for helping me formulate the foundational aspects of this study. You are all a blessing to me. I could not have dreamed of this opportunity, much less seen it to its completion, without my family. I am indebted to you for your constant prayers, advice, support, and sometimes sternly worded encouragement. You all have always been my rock, my sounding board, and my safe place. Thank you to my husband, Gil, for keeping the rest of our world on track and thriving while I had my last hurrah as a student. Your belief in me and my abilities was unceasing and so vital to my success. Lastly, I thank God for answering prayers, opening doors, and placing the right people and opportunities in my life when I needed them. i Abstract Over the past decade, curricula redesigns at the national and state levels increasingly call for the use of conceptual models and modeling practices as teaching and evaluation tools to enhance learning chemistry. Models are often visual, verbal, or manipulative in nature, and may be provided by the instructor or created by the student during a lesson. Moreover, common conceptual models in chemistry present content using macroscopic, symbolic, and particulate levels of representation. These conceptual models, in whichever form they take, offer opportunities to improve student content knowledge and conceptual understanding by allowing the learner to generate and discuss his own model, to make meaning from a model provided, or to critique and revise any model once more information on the topic under study is known. Much research exists to support the use of model-based instruction in middle and secondary grade science classes over traditional lecture-based methods, especially with English learner and special education populations. Less is known about the effectiveness of model-based instruction for students with varying spatial abilities or of differing information processing styles, especially when considering the construct of field dependence and field independence. The differences in ability to visualize representations in three-dimensional space, as well as processing styles, dictate each decision a learner makes in how, when, where, and to what degree to use a model to learn chemistry concepts. In this dissertation, student content knowledge and conceptual understanding were evaluated using visual representations and scientific models in high school chemistry. The relationships between field dependency and spatial ability were also evaluated in the context of the learner’s content knowledge and conceptual understanding. An analysis of student responses to a metacognitive awareness survey was also conducted to better understand the relationships ii between field dependency, spatial ability, and awareness of factors that influence cognition as it relates to students’ perceptions of the strengths, weaknesses, and usefulness of representations at the macroscopic, symbolic, and particulate levels. Keywords: chemical kinetics, conceptual models, modeling, model-based inquiry, field dependency, spatial ability, learning progressions, information processing model, anchoring concepts in Chemistry, high school chemistry, pre-test/post-test experimental design, statistical analysis ANOVA, instruments for data collection iii TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ vii LIST OF APPENDICES......................................................................................................x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF PROBLEM ...........................1 Statement of the Problem .............................................................................................5 Purpose of the Study ....................................................................................................6 Research Design ..........................................................................................................7 Key Terms for this Study .............................................................................................8 Dissertation Outline ................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 11 Methods of Teaching Chemical Kinetics .................................................................... 12 Levels of Representation used in Kinetics Models ..................................................... 21 Weaknesses in Representations used to teach Chemical Kinetics................................ 30 Cognitive Learning Styles .......................................................................................... 38 Field dependent learners in model-based learning chemistry classrooms. .............. 39 Field dependency and spatial ability of the learner................................................. 41 The Process of Learning ............................................................................................ 46 Information Processing Models. ............................................................................ 47 Metacognition and Metacognitive Skills. .............................................................. 54 Visualization and Metavisualization. ..................................................................... 58 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLGY ....................................................................................... 62 Research Questions.................................................................................................... 62 Research Design ........................................................................................................ 63 Method and Design. .............................................................................................. 64 Data Analysis. ....................................................................................................... 83 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND ANALYSIS- STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT ................... 88 Participant Demographics .......................................................................................... 89 Instruments ................................................................................................................ 90 Results ....................................................................................................................... 90 Data analysis for Question 1 ................................................................................. 92 Data analysis for research Question 2: ................................................................. 103 Analysis................................................................................................................... 113 CHAPTER 5: STUDENT METACOGNITION RESULTS AND ANALYSIS.............. 116 Instruments .............................................................................................................. 117 Summary of Participants .......................................................................................... 117 iv Results ....................................................................................................................