Scientific research of high school students

JOURNAL OF SCIENCE OF HNUE 2011, Vol. 56, N◦. 1, pp. 144-148 SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS Bui Van Nghi Hanoi National University of Education E-mail: nghibuivan@gmail.com Abstract. Purpose of scientific research is to discover the new knowledge about the objective world - the phenomenon, the essence of things and the relationships in nature and society. The scientific research results help people to change the nature and society. This paper aimed to answer the question ”Can School Students participate in scientific research?” Keywords: Scientific research, real problems, methodology 1. Introduction Scientific Research is the work not only for a high level of education but for general education. Real life arises many problems to be solved. We can give the problems of closest real life for school students. Our high school students can participate in the research topic and contribute to solve these problems. With international experience and the results have been in the creative competition of the youth in last time we can turn the belief into reality. Scientific researches of school student need to become a widespread movement in our country. 2. Content 2.1. Conception of scientific research Scientific Research is the work to discover new knowledge about the objective world. They are the knowledge about the phenomenon and the essence of things and the relationships in nature and society. Scientific Research also finds new awareness methods to solve problems. The scientific research results help people to change nature and society [1]. The new knowledge has different forms and different levels. It may be a whole knowledge or a combination of old knowledge. It may interfere with the new or old knowledge. It may be an application of existing knowledge into a new situation. However this newly acquired knowledge must be the rule, but is not just at random. 144 Scientific research of high school students Because science is characterized by generalization of practice. The scientific results are the discovered relationships by the rule in nature and society. They enable people to know and improve the nature and society. Dialectical materialism is the methodological basis for all aspects of science. Because it is generalized from all events in nature and society which includes the most general rules in thinking and in nature and society. It determines the start- ing points of view, orients to research and decides the methodological choices and explains the results. The basic idea of the dialectical materialism methodological is reflected in the research as in the following: - Review the processes and phenomena in many relationships and interactions among them. - Review processes and phenomena in the dynamics and development. It denotes the steps in the conversion from quantitative changes to qualitative changes. - Discover the imminent contradictions and the struggles between the opposite sides to find the motivation force for development. - Recognize real life as the origin of knowledge and standard of truth. From that the viewpoints of orientation for the research include: + The system viewpoint. All things and phenomena have a close relationship and dominate with each other in certain systems. During the research process it is indispensable to research both systems because each thing or each part is a part of the systems and in interactive relationship within the system. The system approach allows to identify and study wholly the problem, to reserve completely the relationships and the interactions between parts of the system structure. + The development viewpoint. All the things and phenomena are always mov- ing and developing according to general and special rules. Research by the develop- ment viewpoint allows the review and research of problems in the evolution process not only in the past but also in the future. It is extremely important especially re- search by the development viewpoint in the context of rapid progress of economics, science and technology in each country and throughout the world. + The practical viewpoint. Practices are the foundation of knowledge and the standard and the measure of truth. The close relationship between theory and practice is a requirement and could be a factor to ensure the success of research in general. + The objective viewpoint. The scientific results must be objective. The objective rule will ensure honesty and improve the scientific value of research results. A scientific result should be the basis of theory and the scientific research method with logical reason and recognized fact. 145 Bui Van Nghi Scientific researchers should be interested, passionate, careful, perseverant, honest and sensitive to discover the events. Ideas about the theme often appear in the process of solving the actual work or while researching theory or practice. They may appear in the discussion or seminar. Sometimes they suddenly come from intuition. There are several ways to discover the following scientific themes: - Discover a new event or phenomena that has happened. - A conflict or a problem of a theory in the progress of science or practice. - A new phenomenon or new problem that has never been put into research or not referred to in any of material. - Find out the shortcomings or incompleteness of the theory. - Discovery of a problem that cannot be solved with the old knowledge. That will provide more new information. - Detect the deadlock of the existing method; need to explore the causes and propose the appropriate solutions. - Detect the contradiction of theories and provide a better way to research. - Detect the conflicts and the differences between theory with practice and find the uses of theory to practice, etc.. 2.2. Can School Students participate in scientific research or not? Scientific research is the work not only done by those with a high level of education but also students with a level of general education who can do the research. Depending on educational background, professional skills and abilities, each persons ability can be selected for the topics that are relevant to themselves. In recent years, the contests for creative young people have been a great success. Many students have been awarded and respected for their research results in the Contest Creative. For example, student Nguyen Van Hoa - Hiep Hoa 2 high schools created a multi-purpose robot used for agriculture [2], student Nguyen Van Hung - Lang Giang 2 high schools created a firefighting robot, student Le Huy Nam - 10 B10 - graders Hoang Hoa in high school 4, Thanh Hoa created the machine which can automatically feed animals [3]. However in our country, scientific research by school students needs to become a widespread movement. There are four following types of scientific research: Basic research, applied research, deployment research and forecasting research. It is difficult for school students to participate in basic research, but they can participate in the other three 146 Scientific research of high school students types. In the United States, contest set out real life problems of high school students in the past decade. There was the problems of School Busing, Adolescent Pregnancy, Traffic lights, Going Green etc., There were the local problems of Elections, Bicycle clubs around the City, Curbing City Violence, Water, Water Everywhere, Smoke Alarms, Car Rentals, Hostel systems - Resort, Motel Cleaning, Skyscraper Security Systems... There were the National problems such as National Debt and National Crisis, Inflation of the Parachute, Modelling Ocean Bottom Topography, Gas Prices, Inventory, National Disasters, and the Mighty Dollar, Design of an Airline Terminal, Wipe Out, Forest Service... This competition takes place with teams consisting of up to four students working on a real-world problem for a consecutive thirty-six hour period. Teams are allowed to work on the contest problem at any available facility and then submit their Solution Papers for centralized judging. The team work and then pay all (the team’s solution) by electronic mail and print for rating agencies. Registration is via the contest website. The solution should present major ideas describing your approach to the prob- lems and analyze problems, explain clearly all the assumptions and hypotheses. Stu- dents have access to computers that enable them to word process, use a spreadsheet, and dynamically model both graphs and geometric relationships. Teams may use any in-animate sources of data, materials, computers, software, references, websites, books, etc. Be sure to credit all sources used [4]. Because we do not have the similar contest for school students in Vietnam, we cannot solve the big problems, especially with limited time in two days. However, we can give the problems closest to real life for them. Such as the following problems: * Problem 1. System of bicycle rental places in town. In our current big cities, the traffic congestion usually happens because the density of vehicles on the road is too much. Actually, many people also want to travel by bus rather than car or motorcycle in the city. So if you take the bus then what is the movements from the parking to other places. It is very good if there is bicycle rental place at the bus parking. Be based on the city map, the bus routes and the bus parking ... to recommend a plan on the system of bicycle rental places in town during periods of time from 30 minutes to a day and cheap prices to solve transportation problems in the city. You can think plan on the riders who can pick up and drop off a bicycle at any rental station. How to determine where to locate the rental stations, how many bikes to have at each station? Need to solve problems in every ward or district. Proposing a plan for solving problems should be justifiable grounds based on survey results and statistics. It is better if there are experimental results, empirical, 147 Bui Van Nghi practical models for increasing conviction. All high school students can participate in scientific research of solving prob- lems and may link between the various groups. * Problem 2. Traffic Management in the City. It is very difficult to solve the problem traffic jams in the city in our country. Whereas those assigned to solve this problem must be the competent person. The plan made by the authorities cannot fit all cases and circumstances. I think that all traffic participants should resolve this problem. Please give specific statistics about the types of vehicles on the roads at different times and based on the actual situation on geographical location, the paths to export a plan on solving problems within a certain range.There may be a proposal to go one way flow, the path should open (if open) to increase the effectiveness of the proposed plan. All high school students can participate in scientific research of solving the problems and may link up between the various groups. 3. Conclusion In real life many problems arise to be solved. If the Ministry of Education and Training set the direction and lead, all schools can respond then our students can participate in the research topic and contribute to solve these problems. With in- ternational experience and the results that have resulted in the creative competition of the youth we can turn the belief into reality. REFERENCES [1] [2] [3] content&view=article&id=169:trao- gii-thng-cuc-thi-sang-to-thanh-thiu-nien-nhi-ng-ln-th-iv- &catid=51:hoatdongkhac&Itemid=78 [4] 148