Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item The effects of incorporating visual representation daily into the high school science classroom(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2022) Finkbohner, Sydney Aaron; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: C. John GravesThe purpose of this study was to determine if student understanding and output on assessments would increase if visual representation, both teacher provided and student created, was used on a regular basis. A sub purpose of this study was to see if student attitudes and interest in the class increased when visual representation was used during the lessons. The same group of students went through a nontreatment unit and two treatment units in a conceptual chemistry course. The nontreatment unit, dimensional analysis, was taught in a more teacher centered way, using more lectures and traditional labs and little to no visual representation, while the treatment units, stoichiometry and solution: Molarity, were taught with daily visual representation, included demonstrations, manipulatives, hands on exploration labs, flow charts, and infographics. Pretest and post test scores for each unit were compared through normalized gains to see if there was an increase from the nontreatment unit to the two treatment units. Statistical testing indicated that students learned chemistry concepts better when visual representation were used during the learning process. The students had higher normalized gains on both treatment units compared to the non-treatment unit. Using visual representations on a regular basis also increased student interest and attitudes towards the content being taught. Students were more curious about the topics as well as had better attitudes about the class and what they were learning when they could see it visually and explore it though hands on explorations.Item Improving visual data literacy skills of high school earth and space science students by weekly data analysis curriculum(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2017) Suzak, Miranda G.; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Greg FrancisStudents must be able to interpret and analyze visual data to be successful in science classes, on high stakes assessment testing, and in their adult life. Visual data includes graphs, tables, charts, and diagrams. Traditionally, students receive instruction and practice using visual data literacy skills repeatedly in elementary school, middle school, and high school. This is a challenging skill set, as it requires scientific logical thinking and interpretation of abstract information. Students practice and grow as they continue through school, but continually seem to struggle to achieve mastery of visual data literacy. This project investigated how to improve student understanding, analysis, and use of visual data by focusing on a weekly treatment of Interpreting the Graph. Each week students focused on a piece of visual data that related to current class curriculum. Students worked in lab groups to understand and analyze the data. Class discussion allowed students to share their thoughts and discuss areas that were hard to understand. Data collected for this project included a student survey before the treatment process that assessed student perception of their own abilities and skill in visual data literacy. Students then took a pretest with data literacy questions using graphs, tables, charts, and diagrams. Each week for six weeks students filled out an Interpreting the Graph student worksheet. Each week students also recorded their weekly progress and overall class progress in a graphing packet. At the end of the six week treatment process students took a posttest. Students filled out a student survey about their growth and confidence in data literacy skills through the project, and a selection of students were interviewed about their growth in visual data literacy skills. The intervention seemed to show a positive impact on student learning and abilities. Students showed a 16.7% gain between pretest and posttest assessments. Through the course of the six week intervention, students showed an increase in confidence in visual data literacy skills, as well as showing improvement on the posttest assessment. Students improved their abilities to identify independent and dependent variables of an experiment. However, students showed limited growth in their ability to explain theoretical experimental methods used to create visual data seen in class, and in their ability to write explanations for patterns in visual data using numerical evidence from the data. The key findings showed that students seemed to benefit from learning a methodical analysis procedure to work through interpreting visual data. Students also benefited from participating in regular class discussion about visual data as it pertains to the curriculum. These findings were used in continued discussion with students to help them focus on their own learning. The methods from the intervention were used in curriculum planning to change how visual data analysis was taught in Earth and Space Science classes in future years and shared with other secondary science classes to increase student skill in visual data interpretation and analysis within our school district.Item The impact of visual representation on students learning of, and attitude towards science vocabulary/ by Camilla Dawn Dusenberry.(Montana State University - Bozeman, Graduate School, 2014) Dusenberry, Camilla Dawn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Peggy Taylor.This action research project was designed to test if strengthening a word's meaning by increasing exposure time through visual representation would allow for comprehension of the overall concept to follow. It also takes a look at the effects visual representation has on a child's attitude towards vocabulary. The treatment unit consisted of additional exposure time of vocabulary words through visual representations and a day of review before the chapter test. The visual representations took place in the form of a concept wheel, Venn diagram, word map and web. Results of the study indicate that there was not significant growth between the treatment unit and the non-treatment unit.Item The effects of the use of video clips and academic conversation on student engagement and achievement in eighth grade science(Montana State University - Bozeman, Graduate School, 2013) DuShane, Amy Lynn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Peggy Taylor.In this investigation, video clips were coupled with academic conversations with the purpose of improving student engagement and achievement in an eighth grade science class. Students were shown video clips from popular media sources to encourage interest in basic chemistry, then academic conversations were conducted based on what was shown in the clips. Though performance on summative assessments did not show that students who participated in the study had greater basic chemistry content knowledge than the comparison group, students expressed positive attitudes toward learning when video clips were incorporated into science lessons.Item Relative effectiveness of educational video games in the science classroom(Montana State University - Bozeman, Graduate School, 2011) Nickerson, Erik; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Peggy Taylor.Research has shown that educational video games are effective learning tools, but have not made a significant impact in the classroom. This gap could be a result of the design of the games, in that most educational video games imitate classroom style activities (such as answering multiple choice questions or memorizing flash cards) instead of using the computer's superior simulation capabilities to create a unique learning experience. This research project examined the difference between different styles of educational video games, as well as the overall effect of these games. Each different type of game helped students learn, though the games with more words created a stronger impression that learning actually happened.Item Modified lecture approaches and their impact to improve student understanding and performance in science(Montana State University - Bozeman, Graduate School, 2011) Urista, Audrey I.; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Peggy Taylor.In this investigation modality strategies were implemented in lectures with the purpose of improving student engagement and learning in their individual work. Lecture activities were differentiated according to three different learning styles, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. The lectures were divided into two types, which were traditional and lectures including modality strategies. Though performance and summative assessments showed some improvement following the treatment, students demonstrated and expressed more positive attitudes toward both visual and hands on activities.Item Picture it : visual-spatial teaching to improve science learning(Montana State University - Bozeman, Graduate School, 2012) Brokaw, Jodi Lyn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Peggy Taylor.All students do not learn by the same means, but rather, each student has their own way of learning. They may incorporate more than one learning style to best suit their needs, but prefer one style instead of another. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether integrating a visual-spatial teaching style would improve student test scores in the classroom and if they would retain the new content. Visual-spatial activities were incorporated into the lessons on a daily basis to support the learning of vocabulary. The research also allowed for the identification of students who preferred this learning style rather than other styles of learning. Assessments and student interviews were used to determine whether this style of learning was effective in the classroom. A comparison of the data showed an increase in test scores from the pre-test to the post-tests. Student interviews reported that they preferred learning with the visual-spatial strategies.