The Experimenter Expectancy Effect: An Inevitable Component of School Science?

Abstract

ABSTRACT:A medium-scale quantitative study (n=99) found that 10-11 year-old pupils dealt with theory and evidence in notably different ways, depending on how the same science practical task was delivered. Under the auspices of a part-randomised and part-quasi experimental design, pupils were asked to complete a brief, apparently simple task involving scientific measurement. One half of the sample carried out the task in a naturalistic whole class context; the other half worked as lone experimenters in solitary conditions where accuracy of measurement was promoted. In the whole class setting pupils exposed to an illustrative lesson displayed behaviour indicative of experimenter expectancy, tending to differentiate theory and evidence to a lesser degree than pupils who experienced an enquiry lesson. In addition, during the illustrative lesson many of the pupils were biased towards their theories in ways that lay well beyond those intended by the research design. In the solitary setting pupils performed equally well with both illustrative and enquiry treatments.Implications are discussed in the light of the problems of excessive pupil theory/dataladeness. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of exposing young learners to more authentic versions of professional science are considered.

The Effects of Critique-Driven Inquiry Intervention on Students’ Critical Thinking and Scientific Inquiry Competency

“…The second essential result was that the inquiry-based, hands-on activities and critique-oriented discussion provided fresh insight into CDI instruction for learners. Despite of the observed effects of the CDI intervention, it ISSN 1648-3898 /Print/ ISSN 2538-7138 /Online/ is important to acknowledge that students' awareness of being observed can alter their behavior and threaten research integrity (Allen, 2015;Oluwatayo, 2012). Although students in this research were not made aware of their group membership (EG or CG) during the intervention, the CG students could conceivably have guessed the purpose of the research, which had the potential to produce the "John Henry effect," whereby those not receiving treatment strived to outperform their peers who did receive the treatment (Adair, 1984).…”