| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 理學院網路學習碩士在職專班 === 93 === The design of the curriculum was based on the Dual Situated Learning Model (DSLM) and theories of scientific reasoning. This study attempted to examine the level of academic achievement in science (high achievers, middle achievers and low achievers), and stage of scientific reasoning ability (pre-concrete operational and post-concrete operational) on middle school students’ construction of genetics-related concepts as well as on the promoting of their scientific reasoning ability.
This study adopted a quasi-experimental design. The subjects were 98 seventh graders which received the reasoning and DSLM curriculum of genetics for six weeks in three classes. Data analyses mainly included three parts. The first part, adopted a repeated measure method, examined the differences resulted from level of academic achievement in science and stage of scientific reasoning ability on the pre- post- and retention test scores of the Cognitive Achievement Test and the Reasoning Test of Genetics and the Scientific Reasoning Test. In the second part,18 students were selected to be interviewed before, immediate and 5 weeks after the instructional interventions. The interview transcripts were analyzed with the flow map method. The purpose of the interviews was to probe the interviewers’ conceptual change and the reasoning levels of their responding to the interview questions. The third part concerned the conceptual construction and the development of reasoning ability of the students. This was done by analyzing the data collected during the learning activities.
The repeated measure results showed that students regardless of their initial levels of academic achievement in science showed a significant effect and also a superior retaining effect in the scores of the Cognitive Achievement Test and the Reasoning Test of Genetics. Students at different stages of scientific reasoning ability only showed significant effects in the scores of the Scientific Reasoning Test. The high achievers and middle achievers outperformed in the post- and retention test of the Cognitive Achievement Test and the Reasoning Test of Genetics. The middle achievers also outperformed in the post- and retention test of the Scientific Reasoning Test. Students at the pre-concrete operational stage showed improvement in the the scores of the Scientific Reasoning Test.
The analyses of the interviews indicated that students had a significant improvement in the quantity of conceptual change and the scores of correct concepts in most questions. In addition, with respect to the level of reasoning, since the first topic there was an apparent improvement at the level of elaboration. The level of justification was also increased after the second topic. The above findings demonstrated that the students’ level of reasoning was promoted after a period of time. Moreover, most students’ quantity of conceptual change was increased or sustained. This meant most students had experienced a successful conceptual change after the instruction.
The data collected during the learning process included closed and open-ended responses to the learning events. Analysis on the closed type responses revealed that the average successful conceptual change rate ranged from 54% to 95%. Successful conceptual change occurred more evidently in high achievers and in those at the post-concrete operational stage. However, in the students at the pre-concrete operational stage, there was a trend that the percentage of those who acquired correct scientific concepts increased. Analysis on the open-ended question indicated that in average there was a percentage higher than 80% that the students’ level of reasoning was improved or sustained.
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