Using Personal Meaning Mapping to gather data on school visits to science centres

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Using Personal Meaning Mapping to gather data on
school visits to science centres

• Anthony Lelliott
• Marang Centre, Division of Maths and Science
  Education, School of Education, University of the
  Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

anthony.lelliott_at_wits.ac.za
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My study

• School visits to the Hartebeesthoek Radio
  Astronomy Observatory Visitors Centre
• 26 grade 7 and 8 students during school visits.
• Centre is didactic rather than free-choice.
• Todays presentation learning rather than
  affective and fun aspects of visit.
• Study did not use technology to gather data

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HartRAO
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Visitor Learning

• Contextual Model of Learning (Falk and Dierking
  2000)
• Human Constructivism (Novak collaborators)
• Combination of Ausubels theory of meaningful
  learning with principles of constructivism
• Conceptual Change theory revised by Alsop and
  Watts (1997)

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Research Questions (selection)

• To what extent do students learn in the process
  of a visit to a planetarium or the visitors
  centre of an astronomical observatory?
• What are students individual experiences of the
  visit?
• How do students interests and prior knowledge
  affect the learning experience of a school visit?

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Methods

• Participants 26 students from 4 private and
  public schools in and around Johannesburg.
• Teachers not involved in the study.
• Convenience sampling.
• Data collection pre- during and post-visit.
• Students completed Personal Meaning Maps.
• Students interviewed on basis of what they had
  written/drawn.
• Structured interview on aspects of astronomy.
• Observations field notes during visits.

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Concept Mapping

• Students taught how to map their own
  understanding of concepts, connecting them
  appropriately (e.g. x causes y, a is part of
  b).
• Used prior to, during and after a topic is taught
  in the classroom
• Students maps often compared with an expert map,
  and scored accordingly.

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Personal Meaning Mapping

• Prior to visit
• sheet of paper, phrase prompt. Visitor uses ink
  colour 1
• Interview based on PMM. Ink colour 2.
• Post visit
• Original PMM returned to visitor.
  Additions/deletions/ alterations. Ink colour 3.
• 2nd interview. Ink colour 4.

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Personal Meaning Map
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Analysis of PMMs

• No correct map to compare with. A visitors PMM
  is their personal construct of knowledge/understan
  ding.
• Falk recommends analysis across four dimensions
  of learning extent, breadth, depth, and mastery.
  Mainly quantitative.
• Used qualitatively in my study.

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Gugu a student who apparently learnt nothing
from the visit
2.6-3.0
2.1-2.5
1.6-2.0
1.0-1.5 Gugu
1.0-1.5 1.6-2.0 2.1-2.5 2.6-3.0
Post-visit score
Pre-visit score
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Gugus pre-visit PMM
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Some of Gugus pre-visit knowledge

• She listed the nine planets Jupiter is the
  biggest planet and Mercury is the closest planet
  to the Sun.
• She referred to stars as being a lighting thing
  created by God, and that they are our friends,
  family and negbour (sic).
• When probed about her PMM, she confirmed that
  God created stars so that it can shine at
  night.
• Although she knew the term galaxy she was unable
  to explain its meaning or its relationship to the
  term Milky Way.
• She also appeared to have differing ideas on
  aliens. Having said she doesnt believe in them
  in the structured interview, she mentioned that
  some planets have them in the PMM.

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Some of Gugus post-visit knowledge

• She saw which bottle goes high and low a
  reference to the Coke bottle rockets which
  students used in an activity.
• Additional planets to the nine named ones.
• Additional facts about the nine planets.
• Black spots on the Sun.
• Various features of Mars water, land, and orbit.
• A description of the Moon landing and the time
  taken to get there
• A star bigger than the Sun.

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Implications of Gugus PMMs

• During the structured interview questioning, she
  showed no improvement in her knowledge or
  understanding.
• PMM showed that Gugu had acquired several facts
  about astronomy which would not be apparent
  during conventional pre-post test methods.
• Out-of-school learning needs to use a variety of
  methods (e.g. PMM, interviews, essays, drawings)
  to determine the extent of learning.

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Use of PMMs in association with field trips/visits

• An alternative to diagnostic testing prior to
  starting a topic or going on a visit.
• Teachers could ask their students to complete a
  PMM, in order to determine the prior knowledge of
  each member of the class.
• A relatively brief analysis would enable a
  teacher to tailor his or her teaching to the
  students prior knowledge, as well as target
  individuals and groups for enrichment or
  remediation.

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PMM in research - issues

• Where possible, spend adequate time in
  preliminary analysis of the PMM prior to the
  initial interview.
• Similarly, spend adequate time in analysis of the
  PMM before the second round of data collection,
  and prior to the second interview.
• Experiment with the two alternatives of handing
  the original PMM back to the participants for
  addition/correction and asking them to complete a
  new PMM.
• To what extent does the very act of completing a
  PMM result in possible changes in peoples
  thinking about the topic?