Analysis of Error Types on National Science Fair’s Students’ Research Reports

[摘要] The purpose of this study was to investigate the errors in science inquiry research reports written by students whowon the encouragement award at the National Science Fair, and analyze the frequency of error types by school levels. The framework for analysis was constructed based on the table of contents of the students' science inquiry research reports, and the reportswere analyzed for errors in six stages: Research question/hypothesis, prior research, experimental procedure, results, conclusions, and references. The study identified several types of errors at each stage, such as unreasonable research questions andwrong hypotheses in the research question/hypothesis stage, and limited considerations under certain conditions and selection ofinappropriate experimental instruments in the experimental procedure stage. The study found that the frequency ratio of experimental procedure error was the highest across all school levels, and the order of errors varied by school level. Frequency ratio oferror types of school level was: in the elementary school students’ reports, errors were analyzed in the order of experimental procedure (36.88%), prior research (17.02%), conclusions (16.31%), research question/hypothesis (13.48%); In the middle schoolstudents’ reports, experimental procedure (42.86%), conclusions (20.00%), prior research (14.28%), results (11.43%), researchquestion/hypothesis (10.01%); In the high school students’ reports, experimental procedure (45.16%), research question/ hypothesis (16.13%), conclusions (16.13%), and prior research (11.83%). The findings could be used to guide teachers in helping students conduct scientific inquiry research or write reports.

[学科分类] 化学（综合）

[关键词] Students’ science inquiry research reports;National science fair;Scientific research;Errors;K-12;Research & education