When the cognitive demand level of a science textbook is beyond the student's cognitive development level, the student will likely lose interest in the subject after struggling to grasp its contents. This study is an attempt to determine whether such ...
When the cognitive demand level of a science textbook is beyond the student's cognitive development level, the student will likely lose interest in the subject after struggling to grasp its contents. This study is an attempt to determine whether such a problem exists when it comes to chemistry contents in middle school science 2 textbooks, by first analysing the cognitive demands level of those textbooks and then by comparing it to the cognitive development levels of 8th grade students. The GALT short version test, developed by Georgia University's Roadrangka and others, has been employed to measure the cognitive development levels of 8th grade students; CAT (Curriculum Analysis Taxonomy) Ⅰ,Ⅱ, and Ⅲ developed by the CSMS (Concept in Secondary Mathematics and Science) Program have been employed in order to analyse the cognitive demands level of five different science 2 textbooks.
The results can be summarized as follows:
First, upon testing the cognitive development levels of 607 8th-grade students in five different middle schools in four different districts, it was discovered that only 23.4 percent of students had reached the formal operational stage (contrary to the suggestion by Piaget's theory that students arrive at the formal operational stage from age 12 to 16), whereas 43.2 percent of students were at the transitional stage and 33.4 percent still at the concrete operational stage.
Second, the conceptions in science 2 textbooks requiring the early formal operational stage of cognitive development were found to be those of the melting point, boiling point, pure substance and mixture, distillation, and chromatography; the conceptions of solubility and density of solids required the late formal operational stage of cognitive development in some textbooks; most of the other conceptions were found to require the late concrete operational stage of cognitive development.
Third, considering the students' cognitive development levels, conceptions requiring the formal operational stage of cognitive development are likely to lead to disequilibrium in the understanding of the material by students at the concrete operational stage. Therefore teachers will have to gain prior knowledge of their students' cognitive development levels and modify their course material accordingly.
As this study reveals, learning effect is maximized when the cognitive demands level of the science curriculum corresponds to the student's cognitive development level. However, it isn't always the best option to exclude the more difficult material from the curriculum just because the students' cognitive development levels are uneven or below what is required by the material. Rather, it rests upon the teacher to ascertain the cognitive development levels of his or her students as well as the cognitive demands level of the material to be taught, and to develop teaching strategies that can maximize learning effect.