“Looking at” educational interventions: Surplus value of a complex dynamic systems approach to study the effectiveness of a science and technology educational intervention

Abstract

To fully understand the effect of science education interventions on students’ performance, insight is needed in the properties of teaching-learning processes in individual teacher-student pairs. The assessment of students’ performance during group-based interventions in inquiry learning has been given much attention in the recent years, while the influences on individual student’s learning gains over time have been relatively neglected. The focus on average outcome measures (such as group-based performance) during pre-test and post-tests provides information about the direction of the intervention effect for the average group of students. However, a gap in our understanding remains in how change occurs-in interaction with the context-and how this relates to individual learning gains. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate the surplus value of using a complex dynamic system approach in order to assess the effectiveness of educational interventions on student’s performance. As learning emerges in interaction, we argue that it is essential to also focus intervention assessment on the actual process of teaching and on the change in student’s performance during this teaching process. These insights are important to deepen group-based findings and learn more about features of the underlying dynamics in real-time settings. Data from the Curious Minds Video Feedback Coaching program for upper grade elementary school teachers will be presented as an illustration. This intervention was developed to stimulate change in teacher-student interactions in order to stimulate students’ science performance.