Investigating Effectiveness of an Scientific Explanation Guided Teaching Model on Students’ Learning

• Main Authors: Hsiu-Ting Yang, 楊秀停
• Other Authors: Kuo-Hua Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/sanz6a

博士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 科學教育研究所 === 102 === Improving student ability of scientific explanation is one major goal of science education. However, scientific explanation is not emphasized in elementary school science classes in Taiwan. The lack of an effective teaching model for improving younger students’ scientific explanation writing has been a source of frustration to science teachers. Therefore, an investigation on an effective teaching model for scientific explanation is necessary. The purpose of this study was to examine effectiveness of a proposed guided scientific explanation teaching model for elementary science on performances of student’s conceptual understanding and scientific explanation. The proposed model, which integrating descriptive explanation writing activity, concept mapping, and interpretive explanation writing activity, is called DCI model. A quasi-experimental design, including a non-randomized sampling and a pre- and post-test design, was adopted for this study. An experimental group of 25 students accepted the DCI teaching model, while a control group of 24 students received a traditional teaching. Teaching units consisted of topics about moon and light. Data collection included multiple sources with both quantitative data and qualitative data. A rubric and content analysis was used to score levels of students’ scientific explanations on worksheets of student scientific explanations on topics of moon and light. The quantitative data from achievement tests and worksheets of student scientific explanations are analyzed with the independent sample t test to measure differences in conceptual understanding and in scientific explanations between the two groups, before and after instruction. The qualitative data from student worksheets and interviews are coded and sorted with constant comparisons to examine performance of student scientific explanations and student perceptions of the DCI teaching. The results showed that students in the experimental group performed better than students in the comparison group, both in scientific conceptual understandings and explanations. It also showed that three activities in the DCI model play different roles in students’ learning. The descriptive explanation writing activity can help students identify the basic concepts, the concept mapping can help students connecting the relation of concepts, and the interpretative writing activity can guide students to construct scientific explanations based on their own concept maps. Finally, the students agree with that the DCI teaching can facilitate their science learning and scientific explanations as well. Suggestions for using the DCI model in elementary school science and for future research are also provided in this study.