Study On The Measurement Of Primary School Students' Control Of Variables Ability

The Ministry of Education in 2016 organized the development of the key competence system of Chinese students with "all-round development of people" as the core,including scientific reasoning,scientific inquiry and other important contents.The control of variables is not only one of the components of scientific reasoning ability,but also the basis for students to carry out scientific inquiry activities.At present,many domestic scholars have studied "control of variables",but most of them are empirical summative studies.There are few quantitative studies on students' control of variables ability,and fewer studies on primary school students.Therefore,it is of great significance to measure and study primary school students' control of variables ability.This author mainly adopts literature method,survey method(questionnaire and interview),teaching experiment method and other research methods.The present research is carried out from the following three aspects:Research one: to establish a framework of control of variables ability level and to determine the appropriate measuring tool.Based on the existing literature,this study establishes a development level framework of control of variables ability,which is divided into three levels.According to the development level framework of control of variables ability,this study chooses eight test questions of the control of variables ability in "Inquiry for Scientific Thinking and Reasoning(iSTAR)(11132 edition)" as the measuring tool,and then conducts a test on randomly sampled students from grades three to six.The feedback of students on the test questions is received through interviews,and the language expression of the measuring tool is revised to make it more in line with the reading level and habits of primary school students.Afterwards,a second test is performed on the language adaption measuring tool,and the validity and reliability of the scale are tested by Principal Component Analysis and Clonal Bach Constant,with the results showing that it has a high quality and is determined as a formal measuring tool.Research two: to study the measurement of primary school students' control of variables ability.The subjects are students of grade three to six from two key primary schools in Chongqing.The data show that:(1)Most primary school students in grade two have initial control of variables ability.(2)The control of variables ability of students in grade three to six shows an upward trend.Among them,the increase of grade three to four is smaller;the increase of grade four to five is larger;and the increase of grade five to six is the largest.(3)The male students' control of variables ability is slightly higher than female students',but the difference is not significant.(4)There are significant differences in the control of variables ability between students in the same grade of the two schools.Research three: to study the teaching experiments.This thesis analyses the cause of "the slow development of students' control of variables ability in grade three and four as well as the significant differences in the control of variables ability between students in the same grade of the two schools" in research two,and puts forward the hypothesis that "scientific inquiry activities help to improve students' control of variables ability".In this study,two parallel classes in grade three of primary school A are selected as subjects,and only one month of teaching intervention is given to the experimental class.The result shows that the students' control of variables ability in the experimental class has been significantly improved,which indicates that scientific inquiry activities can help improve the students' control of variables ability.But the progress of the students in the experimental class is mainly in the test of level one,indicating that the development of primary school students' control of variables ability is related to their age.