This paper assesses a novel responsible conduct of research curriculum developed at the University of Oklahoma that focuses on metacognitive reasoning strategies that professionals use when making sense of professional issues that have ethical implications for science. To find out the overall effectiveness of the sensemaking approach, the authors also studied mental models of field experts, fac...

Research has shown that different kinds of experts within the same domain differ from each other in terms of how they organize and use knowledge. Expertise varies as a function of practice, culture, and goals. Previous research by HmeloSilver and Pfeffer (2004) has shown that two kinds of aquarium experts, hobbyists and scientists, have differing mental models of the system. This paper presents...

Shared mental models theory normally takes the individual as its unit of analysis. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for studying shared mental models in which the model is considered to be distributed amongst the team. From this framework a cognitive process is predicted which describes how shared mental models are run. A team reasoning task requiring planning was used to illustrate ...

The identification of the contextual elements of a question is important. Based on our studies on the possible student mental models on certain concepts in electricity and magnetism, a set of multiple-choice questions were developed and tested. Examples of test questions and students’ responses on one concept topic are discussed in detail. It is implied that measurement instruments developed ba...

This study examined how a fundamental principle of induction and scientific reasoning, information diversity, could be used to promote change in children's mental models of the earth's shape. Six-year-old children (N=132) were randomly allocated to a control or to one of two training conditions. Some training groups received instruction that simultaneously challenged children's beliefs concerni...