. This content analysis of articles in the Social Science Citation Index
journals from 1995 to 2009 was conducted to provide science educators with empirical
evidence regarding the effects of scaffolding on science learning. It clarifies the definition,
design, and implementation of scaffolding in science classrooms and research
studies. The results show important cross-study evidence that most researchers have
adopted a qualitative approach (67.44%), focused on learning context (72.09%), and
used high school students as participants (53.49%). In designing scaffoldings,
researchers have shown a preference for long-term explicit scaffolding using multiple
representations to promote procedural and strategic skills and alternative assessments
of learner performance. Nevertheless, scaffolding issues related to teacher education
are unexpectedly few (11.63%) in empirical research. The results also indicate that
there are too few studies to guide researchers in considering fading scaffolds for
active learning (9.30%). Future directions and suggestions toward conducting
research regarding scaffolding are provided.
Relation:
International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education 10(2), p.437-455
