| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 科學教育研究所 === 107 === Inquiry-based instruction has potential to enhance students’ competencies in clarifying and solving problems. The aims of this mixed method study were to examine the effectiveness of applying inquiry-based instruction into an extra-curricular science club, and discuss the impacts on students' science inquiry skills and on students' motivation in learning science.
Fifty-eight seventh and eighth graders participated in this study. The teaching intervention lasted for 16 weeks. Students practiced basic and advanced inquiry skills, and designed to explore local science issues through a series of guided group investigations and discussions. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Data sources included pre- and post- tests from the Inquiry Ability Questionnaire (IAQ) (Wang, 2004), the Students' Motivation Towards Science Learning (SMTSL) (Tuan, Chin & Shieh, 2005) and responses on an open-ended questionnaire. Students’ learning sheets were coded by applying the Teaching and Learning to Standards in Science (Oregon Department of Education, 2002), in which, scientific inquiry abilities were conceptualized as posing questions, planning experimenting, collecting and analyzing data, interpretation data, and conclusions.
The results indicate that most students participated in the science club due to the opportunities of experiments, and some students joined because of the interests in science. They like science experiments, but the aspirations in becoming scientists or working in science were compared lower. The conceptions in science were not formed among seventh graders before science courses, but did eighth graders. After science courses, seventh graders conceptualized science as experiments and theorems of nature, moreover, eighth graders considered science as the principle methods in order to inquire the nature and solve the relative problems. No matter whether it was seventh graders or eighth graders, lacking the concepts of scientific methods amid both at the beginning but significantly increased after.
This study is curious how inquiry-based instructions in an extra-curricular science club impact on students' inquiry abilities. The results show that the aspects of induction, integration and communication had made significant progress, that was to say, the inquiry-based instructions were obviously helpful for students to integrate and express scientific knowledge.
Students' motivations in learning science were identified by the Student Motivation Toward Science Learning. The results shown that except the Learning Environment Stimulation the rest scores had rose, furthermore, the score of Achievement Goal had a significant increase. Which is mean although students felt pressure from teacher during the learning process but it was turning to satisfy accomplishment by challenging the science tasks.
The science learning sheets were coded by applying the Teaching and Learning to Standards in Science in order to understand the inquiry abilities of students. The analysis results indicate that the ability of students in posing questions, planning experimenting, collecting and analyzing data, interpretation data, and conclusions were significantly improved.
Combining the findings from analyzing the students’ artifacts and free responses in the open-ended questionnaire, we concluded in this study, the science club can provide students more opportunities to learn the ways how scientists explore the world.
|
|---|
