The Delisi paper seems to be strongly leaning towards situated/sociocultural learning. Science fairs themselves have many sociocultural aspects such as the presentation to judges, outsider observation, presentation standards, and even the topic studied might be more liked based on a communal situation that is relatable to those in that school district. Of course the study of science fairs and its effects on student understanding of Science and engineering practices is not immediately advocating for situated learning but there are some specific excerpts from the paper that I think show where the authors stand. On page 493 the authors talk about what inspires their research by saying, “Our research is shaped by prior work on inquiry-based instruction and learning theories
that highlight factors important for developing students’ understandings of science concepts and practices”. Based on multiple definitions of what inquiry based learning is this is a pretty clear indication of where these researchers stand on how it is best for students to understand Science and engineering practices. This is also apparent based on the the actual goal of the study which is to show the relationship between different schools execution of science fairs and the students understanding of SEPs. And more specifically teacher scaffolding in this process and understanding of SEPs. To me this shows the assumption of the authors that science fairs (a situated sociocultural setting) is already a great way for students to learn scientific practices but they would like to know to what degree is teacher involvement in this process beneficial. I am not making a claim for the authors stance overall but I do claim that the authors believe situated learning is better for learning scientific practices.
Hands on Science – Brett
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Hi Brett,
I think I agree with your analysis of Delisi. I think we missed each other on my post. I did not say that I think Delisi is a cognitive study. I said that I thought their theoretical framework was very situative and most of their study was situative. Where I mentioned cognitive theory was when I was discussing their methods. I think that the pre and post-assessment part of their methods could be cognitive; however, they have other methods like the observation of the science fairs and the interviews that realign the study with the situative side. Hopefully, that clears things up a little.