Abstract
The purposes of this study were to understand the nature of discourse in terms of knowledge types and cognitive process, source of utterances (student or teacher), and time use in microcomputer-based labs (MBL) and verification type labs (VTL) and to gain an understanding of the role of MBL in promoting mathematization. The study was conducted in 2 grade 11 classes in which students studied Hooke’s law and Newton’s second law of motion using MBL during 1 year while a different group of students studied the same topics with the same physics teacher using a VTL approach. All sessions were videotaped, transcribed and coded using a taxonomy developed by DeVito & Grotzer (2005). In addition, evidence to support each of the 5 steps of mathematization was sought from the actions of the teachers and their discourse with the students. Results showed that conceptual knowledge type utterances were significantly more frequent in MBL sessions, cognitive processes of remembering and understanding were significantly more frequent in the MBL sessions, students spent most of their time analyzing the graphs in the MBL sessions, and MBL has a potential to promote mathematization in favorable instructional environments in physics laboratory classes.
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BouJaoude, S.B., Jurdak, M.E. INTEGRATING PHYSICS AND MATH THROUGH MICROCOMPUTER-BASED LABORATORIES (MBL): EFFECTS ON DISCOURSE TYPE, QUALITY, AND MATHEMATIZATION. Int J of Sci and Math Educ 8, 1019–1047 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-010-9219-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-010-9219-2