변인통제 문제해결 활동에서 학생들의 인지수준에 따른 상호작용 분석 = A Study on Classroom Interactions by Student`s Cognitive Level in the Performance of Controlling Variable Tasks

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In this study, the verbal interactions occurred during the CASE(Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education) activities in the middle school science class has been analyzed regarding with students cognitive level. The subjects were 24 students of 6 groups in a middle school in Korea. Verbal interactions within group discussions during CASE activities were audio-taped, transcribed, and analyzed. Also, classroom observation and interview with students were carried out. The results showed that the student with higher cognitive level tended to be a group leader. They had strong influences on the group discussions in each step of problem solving. Also, the higher cognitive level students were more active in metacognitive discussion and more often used scientific terms. When their group met difficulties in each stage of problem solving, such as perception of problem and designing experiment, the higher cognitive level students suggested some ideas to help their peers and gave them an explanation of how they worked. Low cognitive level students had difficulties in perception and solving the problem as compared with high cognitive students. It was common during activities for the low cognitive level students to fail to identify variables and to distinguish between dependent variables and independent variables. They failed to hold a number of variables at once. However, the metacognitive questions from their peers or teacher were helpful for them to construct the concept of controlling variables. If there is no student who has a high level of thinking in a group, it was necessary to intervene for teacher. A well judged questions from teacher created the cognitive conflict which causes the students to reconstruct their strategy for problem solving and reinforce the control of variables reasoning pattern. From the above results, it is concluded that students` cognitive levels are much related to the verbal interaction patterns. This suggests that teacher should consider individual student`s cognitive level in organizing groups and intervene to facilitate the environment for metacognitive interaction.