Relational Scaffolding Enhances Children's Understanding of Scientific Models
Jee, Benjamin D.; Anggoro, Florencia K. (2019). Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED596343
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examining182Students, grade3
Single Study Review
Review Details
Reviewed: January 2022
- Single Study Review (findings for Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019))
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Researcher-developed test of day/night cycle understanding |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Other intervention |
0 Days |
Relational scaffolding compared to all five pooled comparison groups;
|
15.26 |
12.23 |
Yes |
|
|
|
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
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Researcher-developed test of day/night cycle understanding |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Relational scaffolding compared to no instruction;
|
15.79 |
12.30 |
Yes |
|
||
|
Researcher-developed test of day/night cycle understanding |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Other intervention |
7 Weeks |
Relational scaffolding compared to no relational scaffolding;
|
14.71 |
11.10 |
Yes |
|
||
|
Researcher-developed test of day/night cycle understanding |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Other intervention |
0 Days |
Relational scaffolding compared to no relational scaffolding;
|
15.04 |
12.30 |
Yes |
|
||
|
Researcher-developed test of day/night cycle understanding |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Other intervention |
0 Days |
Relational scaffolding compared to 3D-model only;
|
15.24 |
13.30 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Researcher-developed test of day/night cycle understanding |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Other intervention |
0 Days |
Relational scaffolding compared to sequential scaffolding;
|
15.18 |
14.04 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Perspective Taking Test for Children |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Other intervention |
7 Weeks |
Relational scaffolding compared to all five pooled comparison groups;
|
11.85 |
11.26 |
No |
-- | ||
| Show Supplemental Findings | |||||||||
|
Perspective Taking Test for Children |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Other intervention |
7 Weeks |
Relational scaffolding compared to 3D-model only;
|
11.46 |
10.00 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Primary Mental Abilities Test (spatial-relations subtest) |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Other intervention |
7 Weeks |
Relational scaffolding (with self footage) compared to relational scaffolding (with stock footage);
|
9.85 |
9.50 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Perspective Taking Test for Children |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Other intervention |
7 Weeks |
Relational scaffolding compared to sequential scaffolding;
|
11.08 |
11.55 |
No |
-- | ||
|
Perspective Taking Test for Children |
Relational scaffolding – Jee & Anggoro, (2019) vs. Other intervention |
7 Weeks |
Relational scaffolding (with self footage) compared to relational scaffolding (with stock footage);
|
11.32 |
13.00 |
No |
-- | ||
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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Female: 55%
Male: 45% -
Urban
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Massachusetts
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Race Other or unknown 100%
Study Details
Setting
The study took place in grade 3 classrooms in public schools in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, during after-school hours.
Study sample
A total of 182 students in grade 3 were included in the study. Approximately 55 percent of the students were female. The authors do not report other characteristics about the students or classrooms in the study.
Intervention Group
Relational scaffolding is an instructional method in which a teacher guides a student to notice similarities between a model of a scientific phenomenon and the child’s own observations of the phenomenon. In this study, relational scaffolding was used to help students understand how the rotation of the Earth explains the cycle of day and night. Students participated in three one-on-one instructional sessions with a researcher, each lasting approximately 20 to 30 minutes. In the first session, students played the role of the Earth by holding signs marked “east” and “west” and rotating west to east while looking at a yellow ball representing the sun. During this “embodied simulation” the researcher guided students through a scripted series of questions to attribute the sun’s apparent motion across the Earth’s sky to the rotation of the Earth. Cameras recorded the student’s view of the sun from “Earth,” and a third person perspective (as if the “Earth” and sun were seen from space). In the second session, students watched a split-screen video replay showing the space- and Earth-based perspectives side-by-side simultaneously. In this session, the researcher described similarities between the Earth and sun in the two perspectives shown in the videos while pointing to the corresponding objects in each video. In the third session, students learned about the day/night cycle using a guided demonstration of a 3-dimensional (3D) model of a rotating Earth and sun and watched a video presentation, guided by the researcher, of a side-by-side comparison of space- and Earth-based perspectives of the 3D model. Next, students watched a split-screen showing four videos, showing space- and Earth-based perspectives of the embodied simulation and the 3-D model demonstration, with the researcher describing similarities between the elements in the videos. The researcher also tested a version of the intervention where each student saw footage of another individual playing the role of Earth in the embodied simulation (rather than the student herself). This version of the intervention (called “stock footage”) is compared to the original version (called “self-footage”) as a supplemental finding in this review.
Comparison Group
Students in the intervention group were compared to those receiving no instruction on the day/night cycle, as well as four other comparison groups in which students received instruction on the day/night cycle using different approaches. Similar to the intervention, students in each of these four groups participated in three one-on-one instructional sessions with a researcher, each lasting approximately 20 to 30 minutes. In the 3D-model only group, students viewed a 3D model of the Earth and sun from a space-based perspective and when standing behind the model Earth to experience an Earth-based perspective on the sun’s position. In three of the comparison groups (called “no relational scaffolding,” "sequential scaffolding (self footage)," and “sequential scaffolding (stock footage)”), students received a similar intervention as the relational scaffolding intervention, but the researcher did not guide students to notice similarities between the simulations and models of the day/night cycle.
Support for implementation
Researchers followed standardized, prepared scripts to guide each instructional session. Scripts for the embodied simulation and 3D model instruction were based on a lesson plan for Kinesthetic Astronomy (Morrow, 2000). The authors also prepared standardized scripts for the relational scaffolding and sequential scaffolding instructional sessions, included with the online supplemental materials.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
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Study findings for this report.
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