Situational Student Success

Students' experiences in science change from moment-to-moment depending on a variety of contextual factors, including the types of activities and scientific practices they engage in. We hope to help teachers craft learning environments where students are more interested, engaged, and have overall positive science experiences. In our efficacy study, we compare treatment teachers (those who are trained and using the CESE curriculum) to control teachers (who are using their "business-as-usual instruction). By comparing these two groups, we measure how situational environments in science classrooms are associated with outcomes such as perceived competence.

In this paper, we measure students' experiences as they happen using the Experience Sampling Method. A cell phone application sends students short surveys asking them about what they are doing, who they are with, and how they feel in the moment. We measure the relationship between situational feelings of challenge, interest, control, and competitiveness and how they relate to students' feelings of success and confidence. We find that when a student feels more interested, in control, or competitive they are more likely to feel successful and confident. This relationship was similar for students in CESE classrooms and students in control classrooms. When students felt challenged, though, we found that those in CESE classrooms felt significantly more successful and confident than student in the control classrooms who faced challenging situations.

The CESE curriculum focuses on students' use of scientific practices like designing and using models and planning and carrying out investigations to create explanations for scientific phenomena. These types of activities, while challenging, also give students opportunities to feel successful and confident as they learn science. Meaningful science classroom activities may be a way to maintain high levels of science learning without simply frustrating students with difficult, less meaningful lessons.