Abstract
This study aims to illustrate the effectiveness of model-making and simulations for solving social problems in high school information study classes. The instructional material seeks to foster scientific decision-making capability through modeling by simulation of random events.
The methods of the instructional design are as follows: First, we divided the scientific decision-making capability into five capability components: “modeling”, “representation”, “method”, “interpretation, evaluation, and improvement”, and “communication”. Second, we developed an instructional procedure which consists of three steps, “Modeling aimed to solve unstructured problems”, “Implementing the simulations by random events”, and “Decision-making by using a result of the simulation”. Third, we designed a lesson plan including formative assessment and team cooperative problem solving through interaction, and put it into practice.
As a result of analyzing the performance of students from different aspects using their practical records, within “modeling”, “representation”, and “method”, we found that some students begun to think from diverse points of view and continued onto the phase of sociality.
The result of this study illustrates that interaction and formative assessment are effective means that shift decision-making capability to the phase of sociality, revealing that model-designing and simulation activities with interactions aimed to solve unstructured problems help foster the students’ scientific decision-making capability, thus proposing the implementation of these activities in schools.
