| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺中教育大學 === 科學教育與應用學系碩士班 === 103 === Action Research on the Teaching of Scientific Inquiry with Science Toys: Examples of “Stop at the Precipice” and “Simple Catapult”
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to design the lessons of scientific inquiry that was based on science toys. This study adopted action research to explore pupils’ inquiry ability learning, learning interests, difficulties in teaching and the solutions as well as the professional growth of teachers. The research subjects are fifth or sixth graders in an elementary school in central Taiwan. Two science toy units of “stop at the precipice” and “simple catapult” were designed. Each unit contains three sessions, and two-stage teaching cycle is proceeded, in which a class of students was selected. The collected data included: recording of teaching, teaching journals, worksheets, learning interest questionnaire, observation recorded by a collaborative teacher, interview records, and scientific inquiry ability evaluation. The following conclusions are summarized. (1) The students were quite interested in the inquiry-based teaching with science toys. The five-point Likert scale learning interest questionnaire at the first stage presents the mean of 4.52 (full score= 5), and it reveals 4.58 at the second stage. (2) The evaluation of Scientific Inquiry Ability (full score=17) shows the average score 10.54 for the experimental group at the first stage and up to 13.29 at the second stage, revealing the favorable learning effectiveness of scientific inquiry ability. (3) The scientific inquiry ability score of the experimental group is significantly higher than the score of the control group (p< .01) at both first and second stages. The average scores of the control group at the first and the second stages appear 7.76 and 10.50 respectively, showing the higher inquiry abilities of pupils, after the teaching, than the score of the control group. (4) The scientific inquiry teaching designed with science toys could overcome the difficulties of teachers in the inquiry-based teaching. Finally, several suggestions are proposed for teaching of the scientific inquiry with toys, and the future research of the teachers and researchers who intend to use the science toys to design the teaching of scientific inquiry.
Key words: Action research, Science toys, Scientific inquiry
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