‘But, is it supposed to be a straight line?’ Scaffolding students’ experiences with pressure sensors and material resistance in a high school biology classroom

ABSTRACT

This case study examines how material resistance (limitations posed by the physical world) and graph interpretation intersected during a high school biology investigation using digital sensors. We use an extended episode from a small group to illustrate how, in an inquiry-based unit, measuring near the resolution limit of a sensor caused scaling issues in graphs. Qualitative videotape analysis focuses on both the students’ attempts to make sense of a perceived lack of variation in the collected data and the teacher's and classroom researchers’ misinterpretation of the students’ difficulties with graph interpretation. We suggest that these educators, though experienced, could have benefited from additional strategies to help them recognise and respond to graph interpretation issues introduced by digital representations of real-world data, and that the students could have benefited from explicit prompts to discuss the limitations of their equipment. We describe several implications for researchers, teachers, and curriculum developers interested in implementing inquiry-based biology investigations using sensor data. We argue that students should be supported to recognise that encountering unexpected results from their investigations and working to understand what these results have to say about the real world is an important and valid part of the practice of real science.

KEYWORDS:

• Biology education
• sensor-based science investigation
• scaffolding inquiry
• sensor data
• material resistance

Acknowledgements

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors would like to acknowledge Dan Damelin, Sarah Haavind, Steve Roderick, Linda Cohen, George Jennings, and Cynthia McIntyre for their input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

This study was approved by the Ethical & Independent Review Services (E&I Assigned Study ID: 19106-01) on July 19, 2019, date of check-in July 18, 2021. All participants provided written consent prior to participating. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by minor participants’ legal guardian/next of kin. Identifying information, such as names and places, have been anonymised to ensure participant safety and privacy.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation: [Grant Number DRL-1621301,IIS-1147621].