Abstracts - Earli

F 2229 August 2007 17:00 - 18:20Room: 0.100DPaper SessionChair:Problem solvingLucia Mason, University of Padova, ItalyThe effects of the contexts of questions in assessment on the performance of boys and girlsTze Yung Chan, CCC Heep Woh College, Hong KongSiu LIng Wong, The University of Hong Kong, Hong KongThe present study investigates the effects of the contexts of questions in assessment on theperformance of boys and girls. Three versions of Force Concept Inventory (FCI) were developed,each with decontextualiszed questions, male-familarized-context questions and femalefamilarized-contextquestions respectively. 119 Secondary Four science students in a secondaryschool in Hong Kong participate in the study. All students completed the decontextualised-FCI asa pre-test. The students were then divided into two halves according to their performance of thepre-test and gender so that the composition of marks and the average marks, and the proportion ofgirls and boys of the two groups were almost the same and. Five weeks after the pre-test, onegroup completed the male-familiarized-FCI while the other group completed the femalefamilarized-FCI.Paired t-tests were applied to compare the performance of girls and boys in thetwo groups for each question in the pre-test and post-test. This study shows that familiar contextscan help students activate appropriate schemas when the familiarity is in terms of what they havecome across be it everyday life contexts or simplified contexts in textbooks. However, questionswith too rich contextual data have a negative effect on students’ performance. For example, inproblems dealing with ideal situations such as free falling, rich contextual data may distractstudents’ comprehension of the task and activate students’ schemas related to their common sensemisconception rather than the learned correct concepts. Decontextualized problems maysometimes help students to consolidate some basic but abstract physical concepts, and facilitatethem to bridge the concepts to the application of a wide range of different situations. Theimportance of decontextualized problems cannot be neglected. The findings of this study mayinform teachers, textbook writers and examination setters to strike a balance between the amountof contextualized and decontextualized problems.The influence of social context experiences and momentary affect on self-regulation strategiesduring problem solvingJulia H. Eksner, Northwestern University, USAAim: The adaptiveness of self-regulatory strategies has been conceptualized as hinging on selfregulatorystrength that draws on internal resources of the individual (Muraven and Baumeister2000). The aim of this study is to investigate if individuals’ social environment, such as contextstress and social resources, also contributes to self-regulatory strength. Hypothesis: The experienceof high context stress is hypothesized to present a continuous drain on individuals’ self-regulatorystrength and to lead to temporary depletion of strength in alternative life spheres or domains, suchas school-related tasks. This depletion is hypothesized to lead to less high-effort (optimization,compensation) and more low-effort (goal termination) strategies. Momentary affect is alsohypothesized to be affected by experiences of stress, and is expected to contribute to the selectionof strategies during the task. Methods: Study participants were immigrant public high school– 361 –