Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of explicit-embeddedreflective (EER) instruction on nature of science (NOS) understandings, scientific literacy levels and cell content knowledge of the ninth grade advanced science students. This study has been conducted with 71 students by using non-equivalent quasi-experimental design. The design of the study can be seen in the following figure.
Note: CCKT: Cell Content Knowledge Test, VNOS: Views on Nature of Science Questionnaire-Form C, NSLT: Nature of Science Literacy Test, Boxes: Each box refers to one week in application,Colourful Boxes: Each colour refers to one application on nature of science.
Figure. The design of the study and its detailed illustration.
In the treatment groups, the EER teaching has been conducted while NOS instruction in the comparison group for the same time interval has been done by lecture, demonstration and questioning strategies. Views on Nature of Science Questionnaire-Form C, Nature of Science Literacy Test, Cell Content Knowledge Test, and interviews have been used for data collection. Categorization of the participants’ profiles on the NOS aspects, paired samples t-tests and one-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) have been used for data analysis. The results have shown the participants have had misunderstandings about “one method in science”, “no hierarchy between law and theory” and “difference between observation and inference” while they have had expert views on “role of creativity and imagination” at the beginning of the study. Literature has also been showing the similar results. For example; working with 29 Taiwanese gifted students in junior high school level, Liu and Lederman (2002) have reported that majority of the gifted students have had basic understanding of tentative, subjective and emprical NOS while 24 of them naively understood that law is correct and exists forever. Similarly, Koksal and Sormunen (2009) have studied with 16 academically advanced science students at the age of 15. The authors have also showed that the majority of the students have been found to be naïve in some aspects such as “observation and inference” and “theories and laws” whereas the majority of them are experts in the aspects of “tentativeness” and “subjectivity”.
For elimination of naïve views, the EER approach has been found as effective. Similar results on the effectiveness of the EER on NOS understandings of student have also been reported by different researchers. For example; Khishfe and Lederman (2007) have conducted a study with 129 ninth, tenth and eleventh graders. They have investigated effectiveness of explicit integrated (embedded) and nonintegrated NOS instructions on changing naive NOS ideas. The authors have used environmental issues, chemistry and biology as contexts for the study. They have shown effectiveness of explicit-reflective instruction. At the same time, they have also shown that integrated instruction is more effective on change than the other for environmental issues and some aspects in biology although they have stated that the result does not have any practical importance. In another study, Khishfe and Abd-El- Khalick (2002) have compared relative effectiveness of implicit inquiry and explicitreflective NOS teaching on changing sixth grade students’ misunderstandings. The study has included 62 sixth grade students. The authors have found that the students (85%) in both of the groups have held misunderstandings about the aspects of NOS.
The approach has also been determined as effective on the increase in scientific literacy levels and learning on cell unit. In addition, the EER approach is more effective on learning cell content knowledge and gaining expert understandings of NOS than common approach in comparison group while there has been no difference between the scores of two groups in terms of scientific literacy levels.
The results of the study have indicated that common approach used in biology education and educational experiences provided in Turkey have not been enough to gain expert understandings on the NOS aspects for academically advanced science students. In spite of the sophisticated science content knowledge of advanced science students, their NOS understandings are not sophisticated enough to use this knowledge in their future decision-making for daily lives. To overcome this problem, the results of this study have showed the the EER based NOS teaching is an effective approach for teaching NOS aspects to advanced science students. In fact, the approach has been focusing on teaching the NOS aspects, but NOS teaching can not be separated from scientific literacy and science content in which the NOS aspects are embeded due to their theoretical and operational relationships. Operational relationship refers to the relationship between content knowledge and the NOS aspects because they should be considered together in the EER teaching due to embedding activity and establishing context for learning the NOS aspects. Apart from the positive effect of the approach on changing NOS understandings of academically advanced science students, the approach is also effective on increasing scientific literacy and content knowledge levels of the academically advanced science students. These evidences on NOS understandings, scientific literacy and content knowledge levels have supported theoretical relationship or continuum among these variables for academically advanced science students. Experimental nature of the study has also been providing the opportunity of inferring cause-effect relationship between the treatment and developments in dependent variables. It might be claimed that the components of the approach such as explicit planing, teaching, embedding and reflection together are effective cause for changing NOS understandings and to increase scientific literacy levels of advanced science students. For the increase in content knowledge levels of the participants, it might also be said that embedding component of the approach is an effective cause.
As the other conclusion inferred from the results, the common teaching approach used for biology lessons by teachers is not effective for both increasing scientific literacy and content knowledge levels while the approach is partially effective to change NOS understandings of the academically advanced science students. The common approach does not have any component including explicit planing, embedding and reflection. These components can be considered as main factors to change NOS understandings when effectiveness of the treatment group applications including these components is taken into account. Especially, reflection and explicit planning are very effective components to increse scientific literacy and to change NOS understandings. Embedding component is also very effective for preventing time constraint on content knowledge and providing a context for use of content elements such as concepts, principles, facts etc. Therefore, embedding is an effective component on increasing knowledge levels of the participants.
Comparison results have been showing inefficiency of common teaching to increase content knowledge level while teaching on the NOS aspects with the same approach at the same time. In spite of change in some understandings on the NOS aspects in the comparison group, the common teaching way is not as effective as the EER teaching. The advangates of the EER teaching on common teaching way have been supported by this study despite the non-significant difference in scientific literacy level. In conclusion, it might be said that the EER teaching is effective to teach the NOS aspects, to increase scientific literacy and content knowledge levels while the approach is considered alone. At the same time, the approach is more effective than use of common teaching way in terms of increasing scientific literacy levels and changing NOS understandings of academically advanced science students.
The findings of this study are important due to their contribution to educate academically advanced science student to establish scientifically literate society. The results of this study on scientific literacy and NOS understandings have been providing evidence of efficency of the EER approach and so the applications provided in the study might be used for further purposes to increase scientific literacy in society. Therefore, the applications of this study might be used for the programs on informed decision-making ability about biology issues in advanced classrooms. As another implication, the academically advanced science students with their higher achievement on content knowledge might get opportunity to establish more coordinated and sophisticated science understandings by the approach recommended in this study. These students are in more need of having sophisticated science understandings since they will have higher probability to make more science-related decisions than common students. These sophisticated understandings might be helpful on their decisions about science-related issues. This study has also been showing more integrated approach on NOS teaching to use in biology lessons of advanced science students. The studies conducted on the EER teaching have been only focusing on the NOS aspects. But, the applications of this study have been focusing on the NOS aspects, content knowledge and scientific literacy, so this study might be used for balanced teaching on the NOS aspects by considering scientific literacy and content knowledge together. This study has also been providing experimentally comparable results. Therefore, the results of this study will contribute to the existent literature with its experimental nature and importance of the group studied for science education. The applications provided in the study will also extend existent activity pool of the literature.
References
Khishfe, R. & Abd-El-Khalick, F. (2002). The influence of explicit and reflective versus implicit inquiry-oriented instruction on sixth graders’ views of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(7), 551-578.
Khishfe, R & Lederman, N.G. (2007). Relationship between instructional context and views of nature of science. International Journal of Science Education, 29(8), 939-961.
Köksal, M, S. & Sormunen, K. (2009). Advanced science students’ understanding on nature of science in Turkey. ESERA 2009 Conference, 31 August- 4 September, Grand Cehavir Hotel and Conference Center, Istanbul, Turkey.
Liu, S. & Lederman, N (2002). Taiwanese gifted students’ views of nature of science. School Science and Mathematics, 102 (3), 114-123.
Thesis full reference:
Koksal, M.S. (2010). The effect of explicit embedded reflective instruction on nature of science understandings, scientific literacy levels and achievement on cell unit, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.
Correspondence
Mustafa Serdar Köksal
Karaelmas University, Eregli Education Faculty, Department of Elementary Education, 67300, Kdz. Eregli/ Zonguldak, TURKEY.
e-mail: bioeducator@gmail.com
Phone: +90 372 323 38 70
