dissertation :: Groome, M. (2007). Student Questions in Urban Middle School Science Classrooms. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Teachers College Columbia University.

last updated: 2010-02-01 11:46:30

Abstract

This dissertation examines student questions within three Communities of
Practice (CoP), all urban middle school science environments. The study analyzed
student questions from a sociocultural perspective and used ethnographic research
techniques to detail how the CoP’s shaped questions in the classroom.
In the first study, two case study girls attempted to navigate questioning events
that required them to negotiation participation. Their access to participation was
blocked by participation frameworks that elevated some students as “gatekeepers”
while suppressing the participation of others. The next two studies detail the
introduction of written questioning opportunities, one into a public middle school
classroom and the other into an informal classroom. In both studies, students
responded to the interventions differently, most notable the adoption of the
opportunity by female students who do not participate orally.
Dissertation-wide findings indicate all students were able to ask questions, but
varied in level of cognitive complexity, and the diagnostic interventions were able to
identify students who were not known to be “target students”, students who asked a
high number of questions and were considered “interested in science”. Some
students’ roles were as “gatekeepers” to participation of their peers. Two out of three
teachers in the studies reported major shifts in their teaching practice due to the focus
on questions and the methods used here have been found to be effective in producing
educational research as well as supporting high-need classrooms in prior research.
In conclusion, these studies indicate that social factors, including participation
frameworks, gender dynamics, and the availability of alternative participation
methods, play an important role in how students ask science-related questions. It is
recommended that researchers continue to examine social factors that reduce student
questions and modify their teaching strategies to facilitate questioning. This data
should be shared with teachers and teacher educators to inform them how to increase
and use student questions as well as alternate participation methods that strive for
“science for all”. Future research should focus on how students act as “gatekeepers”
for the participation and potential ways to shift underrepresented students into the
STEM pipeline.

Keywords	informal,museum,middle school,case studies,gender,student questions
Download	groome_final2_1_.pdf

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