Mirror, mirror on the wall, is nature predictable at all? Tracing students’ ideas on ecosystems’ predictability

• Main Authors: AMPATZIDIS, GEORGIOS, DELSERIEYS, ALICE, ERGAZAKI, MARIDA, JEGOU, CORINNE
• Format: Online
• Language: English
• Published: Urray 2019
• Subjects: Teaching practice, JATD, automatic, game descriptors; History, resonance, vibration, waves, cord; Comparatism, dietitian school, epistemic games, social practice of reference, didactic transposition; Serious games, education to sustainable development, experiential learning; Web simulation, experimental design, adaptive scaffolds, biology, high school; Inquiry, learning tool, social media and university students; Bac-3 and Bac + 3 project, chemistry, semiotic register, modelling process; Attrition, Science Teacher Education, Open and Distance Education, Pre-service Teachers; Teaching practices, JATD, didactic action, didactic game, practical epistemology; Analyse lexicométrique, analyse thématique, triangulation méthodologique, biodiversité, curriculum; Emotional and behavioural difficulties, social and emotional learning, teacher-student relationships; Aspects of adulthood, emerging adulthood, higher education students, roles of adults; Complex technological system, car, energy, environment, secondary education; Motivation, scientific career, school-university partnership, professional identity; Expert teacher, task, difficulty, prediction, technical drawing; Erasmus, student mobility, emerging adulthood, higher education, student development; Technical teaching, reform, Electric Engineering, French language, scientific subjects, difficulties; Ecological reasoning, nature’s predictability, two-tier questionnaire, nature views; Initial training, pedagogical knowledge learning, identification methodology, activity control feedback loop, aware and unaware learning; Force on the tooth, three dimensional perception, graphic representation, digital models; Teaching practices, TACD, practical epistemology, transactions, transistor; Critical Reflection, art in education, teachers’ education, university pedagogy, transformative learning; Student dropout, Greece, qualitative research, interview quality, stance of universalism; Immigrants, socio-economic status, habitus, educational aspirations and expectations, young people’s educational choices; Sentiment analysis, opinion mining, education, commercial systems, benchmark; Cognitive ergonomics, space ergonomics, computer laboratory; Science history, wave function, interpretation of quantum mechanics, epistemology; Listening, speaking, oral communication models, literacy practices; Vocational activities, descriptions, differences between teachers and practitioners, implications on education; Socioscientific issue, citizenship education, knowledge, play role, sustainable energies; Open Educational Resources (OER), Webquest, Sustainable Development; Situational Pedagogy, skills in professional communication, professional didactics; Abstraction, technicality, grammatical metaphor, nominalization, Systemic Functional Linguistics, History, Physical Science, Greek textbooks; Educational content, blackboard, morpho-dynamics, non temporalization of displacements in the gridlines

This paper reports on a case study exploring (a) what students claim about how predictable ecosystems may be, (b) whether students’ claims are related to a ‘particular ecological interest’, and (c) how students justify their claims. The study was performed with 324 postgraduate educational sciences students, who completed the latest version of our nine-scenario, two-tier questionnaire. Analyzing their responses we found that (a) they averagely hold ‘moderate’ ideas about nature’s predictability, (b) there is no significant relation between their claims and the presence of a ‘particular ecological interest’, and (c) most seem to choose their justifications assuming a globally-unstable nature.