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ERIC Number: EJ1104061
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-2375-2084
EISSN: N/A
"Will a Black Hole Eventually Swallow the Earth?" Fifth Graders' Interest in Questions from a Textbook, an Open Educational Resource, and Other Students' Questions
Swirski, Hani; Baram-Tsabari, Ayelet
Interdisciplinary Journal of e-Skills and Lifelong Learning, v11 p313-327 2015
Can questions sent to Open-Educational-Resource (OER) websites such as Ask-An-Expert serve as indicators for students' interest in science? This issue was examined using an online questionnaire which included an equal number of questions about the topics "space" and "nutrition" randomly selected from three different sources: a 5th-grade science textbook, the "Ask-An-Expert" website, and questions collected from other students in the same age group. A sample of 113 5th-graders from two elementary schools were asked to rate their interest level in finding out the answer to these questions without knowledge of their source. Significant differences in students' interest level were found between questions: textbook questions were ranked lowest for both subjects, and questions from the open-resource were ranked high. This finding suggests that questions sent to an open-resource could be used as an indicator of students' interest in science. In addition, the high correlation of interests expressed by students from the two schools may point to a potential generalization of the findings. This study contributes by highlighting OER as a new and promising indicator of student interest, which may help bring "student voices" into main-stream science teaching to increase student interest in science.
Informing Science Institute. 131 Brookhill Court, Santa Rosa, CA 95409. Tel: 707-531-4925; Fax: 480-247-5724; e-mail: contactus@informingscience.org; Web site: http://www.informingscience.org/Journals/IJELL/Overview
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Grade 5; Intermediate Grades; Middle Schools; Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Israel
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A