written by Sissi L. Li and Dedra Demaree

Innovative curricula aim to improve content knowledge and the goal of helping students develop practices and skills of authentic scientist through active engagement learning. To students, these classroom practices often seem very different from their previous learning experiences in terms of behavioral expectations, learning attitude, and what learning means. We propose that productive participation in these learning environments require students to modify their identity as learners in addition to refining their science conceptual understanding. In order to measure changes in learning identity, we developed a 49-item survey to assess students' 1) expectations of student and teacher roles, 2) self efficacy towards skills supported in the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) and 3) attitudes towards social learning. Using principle components exploratory factor analysis, we have established two reliable factors with subscales that measure these student characteristics. This paper presents the survey development, validation and pilot study results.

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Published February 6, 2012
Last Modified April 25, 2012

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