Abstracts - Earli

and understanding graphs, D-Fitting a trend line to measurements. Two groups of subjects weretested: 33 freshmen of an industrial engineering program and 25 participants of a physics teachingcertificate program (referred to as "students" and "teachers", respectively). The finding showedthat the performance of both groups was lower than expected with an average score of 62.25%(students- 57.89%, teachers- 68%). The most severe problem was in category D. These resultsindicate that the teachers have a marginal advantage in their level of understanding, possibly dueto their increased experience and wider statistical background. A more in-depth analysis showsthat although female students scored significantly lower than male students, female teachersscored insignificantly higher than male teachers. There was no significant difference betweenteachers and students for male subjects. This suggests a significant improvement with experience,among the female subjects. Understanding the difficulties students may face in analyzing raw datamay significantly contribute making the laboratories more efficient learning environments.The ecology of children’s conceptual thinking and learning of scienceMarjatta Kangassalo, University of Tampere, FinlandKristiina Kumpulainen, University of Helsinki, FinlandEva Tuominen, University of Tampere, FinlandSatu Vasama, University of Oulu, FinlandKaren Littleton, Open University, United KingdomSetsuo Ohsuga, University of Tokyo, JapanThis poster introduces an ongoing research project, which investigates children’s conceptualthinking and learning of science in early years classrooms. Whilst taking an ecological stand tohuman activity and learning, the project aims at widening theoretical, methodological andpedagogical understanding of children’s science learning in activity contexts mediated by sociallyshared inquiry learning activities, and modern technological tools. The research programapproaches conceptual learning from the perspective of cognitive and socio-cultural approaches inorder to illuminate the socio-cognitive processes of science learning when modern multimediatechnological possibilities are in children’s use. Consequently, the unit of analysis of the presentresearch programme are to be found in both the individual and the social and their inter-dynamics.Theoretical and methodological foundations of the research project are laid by theories and set ofconcepts derived from cognitive and social psychology, cognitive science, studies of discourse,learning and social practice. The empirical data of this research project have been collected amongyoung children aged between six to eight years, with a classroom community of 22 children.During science units children had possibilities to explore science phenomena using versatile tools,including a multimedia tool, PICCO. The data of the research programme have been collected bymeans of video-recordings of children’s interviews before and after the science units. Videorecordingshave also captured children’s interaction processes during the actual participation ininquiry-based learning activities. Children’s exploration paths in the multimedia environment havealso been recorded. The analyses of the empirical data of this research project are currentlyundergoing. The main aim in the analysis will be to model children’s collaborative inquiry andconceptual learning in science learning. The results of the research will be important for theoreticaland applied research on conceptual thinking and learning as well as for educational practice withearly years science learners.– 437 –