The Development of an Instrument for Assessing Students' Perceptions of Biology Teachers' Instructional Use of Diagrams

Science teaching involves using scientific diagrams to explain important concepts, to provide visual images, or to motivate students. However, teachers often wonder if their use of diagrams is effective in helping students learn science. This study aimed to help science teachers evaluate how students perceive their use of diagrams during instruction. Subsequently, we adapted an instrument to measure students' perceptions of science teachers' instructional use of diagrams based on Tuan et al.'s (2000) Student Perceptions of Teachers' Knowledge (SPOTK) questionnaire. The adapted instrument initially had four categories - teacher's instructional practice in using diagrams; teacher's use of multiple forms of scientific representations; teacher's use of diagrams in assessment practices; and students' understanding of and competence in using scientific diagrams. The instrument was administered to 215 Australian high school biology students in Years 9-10. Following factor analysis, 20 items remained in the final instrument and three scales were extracted - Instruction with Diagrams, Assessment with Diagrams, and Students' Diagrammatic Competency. The reliability of the total instrument Students' Perceptions of Teachers' Use of Biology Diagrams was 0.91 and the reliability of each category ranged from 0.65 to 0.90. This instrument is specifically related to the diagrammatic usage in biology lessons and, hopefully, with further research can be generalised to other science lessons. Future research will investigate the relationship between teachers' instruction with diagrams and students' understanding of them

Science Teachers’ Understanding of Creative Thinking and How to Foster It as Mandated by the Australian Curriculum

Developing students’ creativity is an important educational goal in many countries. The Australian Curriculum Authority has mandated that all teachers teach creative thinking across all subjects and grades. However, after more than 10 years working within this mandate, how do science teachers see their role in promoting creativity in the classroom? This study reports interviews with 13 Australian science teachers, from three jurisdictions, about how they understand creativity, the activities that they use and barriers to supporting creative thinking in classrooms. The findings showed that, although teachers were able to identify many of the elements of creativity and creative thinking described in the literature, many still felt unsure of what creative thinking entails. For class activities that foster creative thinking most teachers focused on project-based or inquiry learning which require long periods of class time to complete. Less emphasis was given to the importance of developing creative thinking skills in making hypotheses by supporting construction of meaning, providing personal insights and explanations through the use of possibility thinking, mental images, analogies when teaching curriculum content. The Australian Curriculum documents themselves give guidance suggesting that creative thinking in science is mainly developed through inquiry-based activities. It is imperative that schools give more support to teachers to understand and develop creative thinking tasks, including time, resources, professional learning, and accountability systems

The productive interplay between student-student and teacher-student dialogic interactions and the affordances of student generated explanatory drawings to understand plate tectonics

Understanding mechanisms underpinning formation of convection currents is pivotal for developing explanations of plate tectonics when teaching Geoscience topics. While student generated diagrams explaining convection currents may be used to evaluate student conceptual understanding and alternative conceptions in this topic, students may need support to produce elaborated explanatory diagrams. This study investigates the affordances of dialogue with peers and knowledgeable others as students construct explanatory diagrams of convection current formation and plate movement. Grade 8 students (n = 37) participated in small group and whole class discussions to construct explanations of plate movements at divergent boundaries and then drew diagrams to elaborate their understanding of this phenomenon. Throughout the process students were encouraged to mentally engage with the drawing process through discussions with peers and teachers. The drawing process provided opportunities for teachers to identify alternative conceptions that were not evident in teacher-student dialogic interactions but were evident in diagrams and to encourage consideration of scientific explanations through use of probing questions about what students were representing. The drawing process also elicited discussions between peers about complex interactions occurring within the mantle, during which some students became aware of inconsistencies within their explanations which led to adoption of more scientifically accurate conceptions

Analysis of Students’ Diagrams Explaining Scientific Phenomena

While there has been much interest in the power of student-generated multiple representations to promote student reasoning and conceptual understanding, most studies of student explanations have been of written artefacts or only included diagrams as an adjunct to written explanations. This approach may be because teachers do not have an accessible framework with which to evaluate students’ diagrams as being explanations. Adapting de Andrade et al.’s Research in Science Education, 49, 787-807 (2019) evaluation framework for written explanations, this study explored the benefits and limitations of a framework to evaluate students’ explanatory diagrams. Seventeen grade 5 and 6 students produced a series of explanatory diagrams over six chemistry lessons on particle theory. Their diagrams were coded and evaluated using the proposed diagram analysis framework. Some sample diagrams are included to illustrate how the framework assisted the evaluation of students’ diagrams. The framework helped identify key features of students’ diagrams and evaluate their explanatory powers consistently and effectively. This research also indicates that a series of stand-alone diagrams can effectively be used by teachers to assess how students communicate their understanding of causal explanations in terms of sub-microscopic entities of the underlying phenomena

ELL\u27s science meaning making in multimodal inquiry: A case-study in a Hong Kong bilingual school

This paper reports on a multimodal teaching approach delivered to grade 5 elementary students in a bilingual school in Hong Kong, as part of a larger research study aimed at supporting English Language Learners (ELLs) in science class. As language demands of reading, writing and talking science place additional challenges on ELLs, there is much research interest in exploring the use of multiple modes of communication beyond the dominant use of verbal and written language. Research has shown that students develop a better scientific understanding of natural phenomena by using and alternating between a variety of representations. Yet, questions remain as to what meanings ELLs make during a multimodal discourse and, in turn, how such discourse provides support to ELLs in learning science. Drawing on social semiotics, which theorizes language as a meaning making resource comprising a range of modes (e.g. gestures and diagrams), we used a case-study approach to examine how a multimodal instructional approach provided 10 students with multiple avenues to make sense of science learning. Video recordings (capturing gestures, speech and model manipulation) and student works (drawing and writing) were collected during nine inquiry science lessons, which encompassed biology, physics and chemistry science units. Multimodal transcription allowed discourse to be analysed at a fine-grain level which, together with analysis of student works, indicated that the multimodal instructional approach provided the necessary inquiry opportunities and variety of language experiences for ELLs to build science understandings. Analysis also revealed how the affordances of modes attributed to the meaning making potentials for the ELLs and how they provided alternate communication avenues in which new meanings could be made. The findings from this study have implications for ELLs learning science within the growing multilingual Asia-Pacific region

A case for enhancing environmental education programs in schools: Reflecting on primary school students’ knowledge and attitudes

© 2016 Treagust et al. Environmental education in schools is of increasing importance as the world population increases with the subsequent demand on resources and the potential for increased pollution. In an effort to enhance the standing of environmental education in the school curriculum, this study was designed to determine primary students’ knowledge about the environment, their attitudes towards helping the environment and what they actually have done to help the environment. The Year 4 and 5 students in regular and gifted classes in one primary school answered a questionnaire called the Children’s Environmental Attitude and Knowledge Scale (CHEAKS) and several students in both Year levels were interviewed in pairs to elaborate on their responses. In the interviews, students discussed what they had been taught in school in relation to the environment. The findings include (1) Year 4 students had a higher commitment to the environment than Year 5 students; (2) gifted students had more knowledge than regular students; and (3) girls were more verbally committed to the environment than boys. Having knowledge about the environment did not necessarily mean that the student was committed to saving the environment, nor did it mean that the student took action to solve environmental problems. While this study was conducted in one school, the implication is the need for the implementation of a curriculum to help students develop their knowledge and attitudes to take proenvironmental actions

An action research in science: Providing metacognitive support to year 9 students

© 2016 Wagaba et al. An action research study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of providing metacognitive support to enhance Year 9 students’ metacognitive capabilities in order to better understand science concepts related to light, environmental health, ecosystems, genetics, ecology, atoms and the Periodic Table. The study was conducted over three years involving 35, 20 and 24 students in each year. The interventions included providing students with clearly stated focused outcomes about the relevant science concepts, engaging in collaborative group work, reading scientific texts and using concept mapping techniques. The data to evaluate the effectiveness of the metacognitive interventions were obtained from pre- and posttest results of the Metacognitive Support Questionnaire (MSpQ). The results showed gains in the MSpQ

Science teacher education in Australia: Initiatives and challenges to improve the quality of teaching

In this article, we describe how teachers in the Australian school system are educated to teach science and the different qualifications that teachers need to enter the profession. The latest comparisons of Australian students in international science assessments have brought about various accountability measures to improve the quality of science teachers at all levels. We discuss the issues and implications of government initiatives in preservice and early career teacher education programs, such as the implementation of national science curriculum, the stricter entry requirements to teacher education programs, an alternative pathway to teaching and the measure of effectiveness of teacher education programs. The politicized discussion and initiatives to improve the quality of science teacher education in Australia are still unfolding as we write in 2014

A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE COMPLEXITIES OF TEACHING AND LEARNING CHEMICAL EQUILIBRIUM WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO MALAYSIA

The purpose of this study was to review the extant literature on chemical equilibrium research in high school chemistry. The review involved understanding of the nature of chemical equilibrium, particularly about chemical reactions not going to completion, the reversibility of chemical reactions and the idea of dynamic equilibrium. Associated with these understandings was the derivation of the Equilibrium Law and the significance of the equilibrium constant followed by the use of Le Chatelier’s Principle including the limitations of this principle. The review then focused on the common alternative conceptions associated with the chemical equilibrium concept. The study next considered these features in the Malaysian context. For this purpose, the researchers formulated an instructional program relevant to the Malaysian Higher School Certificate curriculum that was implemented over 11 hours with 56 high-achieving students in Year 12 from a private secondary school. To evaluate students’ understanding of chemical equilibrium concepts after instruction the Chemical Equilibrium Conceptual Test-1 (CECT-1) was administered after instruction. The test consisted of 10 two-tier multiple-choice items that were adapted from previously developed questionnaires. The results indicated very limited understanding of the relevant concepts. The total scores in the CECT-1 ranged from 0 to 9 (out of a maximum score of 10) with a mean score of 5.04. Less than 50% of students correctly answered five of the 10 items. The findings suggest the need for teachers to address students’ preconceptions about chemical equilibrium concepts and use appropriate strategies to enable students to acquire scientifically acceptable understandings

Primary School Teachers’ Understanding of Science Process Skills in Relation to Their Teaching Qualifications and Teaching Experience

This study investigated the understanding of science process skills (SPS) of 329 science teachers from 52 primary schools selected by random sampling. The understanding of SPS was measured in terms of conceptual and operational aspects of SPS using an instrument called the Science Process Skills Questionnaire (SPSQ) with a Cronbach’s alpha reliability of 0.88. The findings showed that the teachers’ conceptual understanding of SPS was much weaker than their practical application of SPS. The teachers’ understanding of SPS differed by their teaching qualifications but not so much by their teaching experience. Emphasis needs to be given to both conceptual and operational understanding of SPS during pre-service and in-service teacher education to enable science teachers to use the skills and implement inquiry-based lessons in schools