Browsing by Author "Ghalichi, Narmin"
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Item Conceptualization of System Structure as a Stepping Stone to Systems Understanding among K-12 Students(2019-05) Ghalichi, NarminA new vision set forth by the Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) highlights the importance of developing students’ abilities to think about systems as opposed to isolated facts. However, little evidence exists on how to foster students’ conceptualization of systems. It has been argued that conceptualization of systems structure serves as a stepping stone to understanding of systems (Arnold & Wade, 2015; Assaraf & Orion, 2005). Thus, this dissertation presents an analysis of students’ conceptualization of systems structure as a result of a curricular intervention at the high school level. The systems-oriented unit served as a context in which students’ identification of connections between components within a system could be investigated. Prior research exclusively examined conceptualization of processes to understand how students develop systems understanding (Kali, Orion & Eylon, 2003; Libarkin & Kurdziel, 200). Given the stipulated relationship between systems understanding and connections between material components that make up system structure, this study investigated students’ conceptualization of system structure through the ways in which they connect components within category of matter. The main objectives of the study were: 1) to examine the ways in which students identify connections between matter components within a system and use these connections as a basis for the development of a Systems Matter Framework (SMF), 2) to examine the validity of the developed framework by using this construct as a basis to evaluate students’ representations of connections between system components. The evaluation of SMF validity demonstrated that this framework can be used to track growing conceptualization of system structure and to relate it with the development of systems understanding. Therefore, the SMF can be used as an instrument for student evaluation. To examine generalizability, future research needs to examine SMF in different settings.Item Female crickets reared in silence exhibit risk-sensitive behavior in response to the preferred song(2018-12) Ghalichi, NarminFemale choice is influenced by many environmental cues that get experienced during different stages of female development. Cues experienced in juvenile stage may have larger impact on female mate choice than mating decisions in response to cues experienced during adult mate choice. To examine how juvenile acoustic rearing interacts with immediate perception of risk in shaping female mate preference, we used the system of Pacific field cricket (Teleogryllus oceanicus). Females raised in silence were predicted to be more responsive under conditions associated with low risk without discriminating across song models. Females raised in the presence of song were expected to exhibit preference for a song model under conditions associated with low risk. Our results showed no interaction for females raised in the presence of song; females raised in silence exhibited preference for a song model under conditions associated with risk.