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Integrative Analysis Using Big Ideas: Energy Transfer and Cellular Respiration

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Abstract

Big ideas in science education are meant to be interpretive frameworks that empower student learning. Unfortunately, outside of the broad conception of scientific evaluation, there are few theoretical explanations of how this might happen. Therefore, we contribute one such explanation, an instructional concept called integrative analysis wherein students use a big idea to interconnect isolated scenarios and enrich their meanings. We illustrate the characteristics and value of integrative analysis within an empirical study of student learning in 9th-grade biology. The study focused on using energy transfer as a big idea for teaching cellular respiration. Fifty-nine students were randomly assigned to one of two instructional conditions. In the “analysis” condition, students processed a set of three manipulatives representing cellular respiration molecules; then, they abstracted the deep energy transfer structure of these manipulatives as a big idea. In the “recognition” condition, students processed the same molecule-manipulatives, but without energy interpretations. Instead, they constructed additional manipulatives using novel materials. Then, students in both conditions received an identical lesson where they used their knowledge of the manipulatives to learn about one cellular respiration process, glycolysis. Specifically, students processed a sequence of three texts describing glycolysis, annotating the texts with either their deep energy transfer structure (analysis condition) or their contextualized knowledge of the manipulatives (recognition condition). A posttest showed that in the analysis condition, this process was significantly integrative as evidenced by analysis students’ advantage over recognition students in connecting glycolysis to novel phenomena and generating causal explanations about glycolysis.

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Data Availability

The data sets for the current study are not publicly available due to the fact that they are part of research in progress. However, they will be made available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. We followed Windschitl et al.’s (2012) preference for students to understand big ideas as models. This approach affords big ideas epistemological status with students (i.e., imperfect, fitting distinct purposes, subject to revision) while also providing tools with which to develop and communicate big ideas.

  2. A major issue with this energy aspect of the manipulatives—which also extended to the model that students constructed from them—was that it incorrectly represented the effort to form molecules as pushing particles together against repulsive forces between them. From a chemistry standpoint, this is exactly wrong, as the forces involved are attractive, so it takes energy to pull particles away from each other. See the limitations in “Discussion” for additional explanation of this issue and how it limits the conclusions of the study.

  3. Correct student responses did not have to be characteristic of their condition.

  4. Researchers classify this way of thinking as a misconception based on evidence of its persistence through instruction, though some are circumspect about why this is so (Teichert & Stacy, 2002).

  5. We want to thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this possibility.sssss.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge team members Eric Kirk who helped with the initial development of instructional materials and Michael Elgin Leary who supported in data collection and analysis. We are also grateful for the commentary of two anonymous reviewers who helped us understand our work more clearly.

Funding

This material is based on research supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers 1720996, 2010334, and 2010223.

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  1. The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA

    Jonathan T. Shemwell & Carlson H. Coogler

  2. University of Georgia, Athens, USA

    Daniel K. Capps & Ayca K. Fackler

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  1. Jonathan T. Shemwell
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Correspondence to Daniel K. Capps.

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Shemwell, J.T., Capps, D.K., Fackler, A.K. et al. Integrative Analysis Using Big Ideas: Energy Transfer and Cellular Respiration. J Sci Educ Technol 32, 510–529 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-023-10040-5

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