Fostering Scientific Skill Development Through Interactive Classification of Celestial Bodies

Applied Sciences, vol. 16, pp. 9978

Abstract

Developing scientific literacy in primary education can be challenging. Teachers often lack the time, scientific domain knowledge, and capacity to provide individualised support and guidance during hands-on science activities. As a result, students may struggle to interpret observations and draw accurate conclusions. To address this, we designed a feedback-enhanced lesson and investigated students’ performance and engagement with optional feedback while developing classification skills using the Solar System as context. Developed within the Minds-On application, the lesson combines hands-on activities with a knowledge-based artificial intelligence approach in which encoded domain knowledge enables automated checking of students’ classifications and error-triggered feedback. Students classify celestial bodies by shape, composition, and orbit using a three-level classification tree. A classroom evaluation with 164 students (ages 10–12), using student-performance and interaction-log data, showed that most successfully engaged with the tasks and navigated their increasing complexity. Performance and interaction data indicated that task difficulty peaked at Level 2, while error rates and engagement decreased at Level 3. Although feedback was available to 89 students following an error, only 25 consulted it at least once, and use was fragmented across classification levels. The small and inconsistent feedback-user subgroup therefore does not allow strong conclusions about feedback effectiveness but provides insight into patterns of feedback uptake and interaction.

Authors 6

1. Ilham Bouisaghouane Aachen Department of Science Communication & Society Institute of Biology, Leiden University Leiden Observatory

   Leiden University · University of Applied Sciences Leiden · Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Science Communication & Society, Institute of Biology, Leiden University, 2333 BE Leiden, The Netherlands

   Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, 2333 CC Leiden, The Netherlands

   Science Education Research Group, Faculty of Education, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, 1091 GM Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2. Joanna Holt

   Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences · University of Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, 1098 XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands

   Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), 1098 XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands

   Science Education Research Group, Faculty of Education, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, 1091 GM Amsterdam, The Netherlands

3. Bert Bredeweg

   Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences · University of Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Informatics Institute, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam, 1098 XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands

   Science Education Research Group, Faculty of Education, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, 1091 GM Amsterdam, The Netherlands

4. Patricia Kruit

   Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

   Affiliation as printed

   Science Education Research Group, Faculty of Education, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, 1091 GM Amsterdam, The Netherlands

5. Pedro Russo Aachen Department of Science Communication & Society Institute of Biology, Leiden University Leiden Observatory

   Leiden University · University of Applied Sciences Leiden

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Science Communication & Society, Institute of Biology, Leiden University, 2333 BE Leiden, The Netherlands

   Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, 2333 CC Leiden, The Netherlands

6. Tom Van Eijck

   Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

   Affiliation as printed

   Science Education Research Group, Faculty of Education, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, 1091 GM Amsterdam, The Netherlands