Conclusions from education

Chapter 11 Drawing Meaningful Conclusions from Educational Experiments Melanie M. Cooper... 

The scientific method is taught starting in elementary school. The first step in the scientific method is to form a hypothesis. A hypothesis is just an educated guess or logical conclusion from known facts. It is then compared against all available data and its details developed. If the hypothesis is found to be consistent with known facts, it is called a theory and usually published. The characteristics most theories have in common are that they explain observed phenomena, predict the results of future experiments, and can be presented in mathematical form. When a theory is found to be always correct for many years, it is eventually referred to as a scientific law. However useful this process is, we often use constructs that do not fit in the scientific method scheme as it is typically described. 

The conclusion from this exercise is that although data are missing to a large extent, it is possible based on the literature and some educated assumptions to come up with reasonable estimates. In the absence of real data, such an approach is preferable to ignoring additives altogether, since they can contribute to impacts significantly. 

Finally, the education of data customers is essential in every discovery program. With the increased amount of data stored in databases, access by many more data users naturally occurs. The scientist who generated the data is no longer the only researcher to examine and interpret that data or otherwise draw conclusions from them. Most databases are merely an assembly of data with no information on how an experiment was performed or the conclusions drawn from the data. There is a responsibility associated with the development of discovery screens and that is the education of potential users of the information. 

Better still, the view I am proposing now is an intermediate position between the realism of believing in the real and concrete existence of many-electron orbitals and the reductive view from quantum mechanics that banishes all talk of orbitals. I suggest that chemical education can benefit from a form of realism, which is tempered by an understanding of the viewpoint of the reducing science but which does not adopt every conclusion from that science. 

Most HIT safety cases would not typically stand up to the intense rigour of the scientific method. The safety case is not a mathematical proof. Rather it should present the rationale for a reasonably educated reader, through the careful appUcation of logic, to draw justifiable conclusions from the evidence presented. The technique is sometimes referred to as inductive reasoning and is the basis of many scientific theories. 

Misconception—Researchers can eliminate biases from educational research It is impossible to eliminate biases from chemical education research studies (or benchtop chemical research studies), and it is naive to think that simply because a possible source of error (bias) in a study has been found, the study is inherently flawed and therefore useless. The best chemical education researchers can do is to attempt to minimize these errors or biases, and to recognize that these errors or biases may have some effect on the results and the conclusions based on these results. 

When reporting the results of statistical analyses, chemical education researchers should report the test statistics and values, the degrees of freedom (if relevant), and the probability values for the test statistics. If some of this information is missing, then it makes it difficult for the reader (or reviewer) of the research study to be certain that the researchers have properly analyzed and interpreted the statistical data. Cooper s chapter in this book (14) discusses the importance of ensuring that conclusions from chemical education research studies are based on (and consistent with) the reported data. 

Furthermore, in making a conclusion from the data, it should be able to match with the current practice as the problem initially came from the current practice. Sound educational decisions can be made through recommendations that are drawn from the valid interpretation of the data. The conclusion may provide new insights into the existing theories. 

From the observations students not only got a chance to recall what they had been like at that age, they in fact reahzed that they got a good insight into how children are educated at this level today compared to 10 years ago . So they got a sense of the dynamic nature of contexts as well. Another conclusion from the observations was the realization that the pupils reacted very positively to praise, and that the teacher had a way of making the rather easy tasks (in the view of the group) seem a lot more difficult, so pupils would feel they had made a huge accomplishment when they solved a problem. After these sessions the students decided to make follow-up questioning of a couple of pupils to know more about what they preferred in terms of computer games and formal educational exercises. 

It can be seen that it is difficult to make firm conclusions from studies of this nature. The methodological assumptions and control or matching procedures must be viewed with caution. It would appear that assessing minor differences in relatively coarse measures, such as intelligence quotient, educational attainment and behavioural patterns, is unlikely to produce conclusive results. It appears that there is no easy way to ascertain whether lead, at the levels of exposure studied, causes mental handicap, or minor intellectual impairment, or indeed any neurological disturbance at all. 

Based on printed (and handwritten) material, it is possible to arrive at conclusions from three different aspects. The first is the acquaintance with a contemporary chemical topic and some reaction to it, either in support or not the second pertains to the knowledge to be taught at two different levels higher education and secondary education the last one relates to interest in popularizing the topic. We would like to consider another aspect that is based on weaker research. 

Suggested experiments from the Journal of Chemical Education. Rather than including a short collection of experiments emphasizing the analysis of standard unknowns, an annotated list of representative experiments from the Journal of Chemical Education is included at the conclusion of most chapters. These experiments may serve as stand alone experiments, or as starting points for individual or group projects. 

In 1809 Dr. Wollaston analyzed both columbite and tantalite (10). His conclusion that niobium and tantalum are identical was accepted by chemists until 1846, when Heinrich Rose (a grandson of Valentin Rose the Elder and son of the Rose whom Klaproth educated) questioned it. Rose had made a thorough study of the columbites and tantalites from America and from Bodenmais, Bavaria, and had extracted from them... 

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