Integration of Technology-Supported History of Science into Biology Teaching and Assessing Its Effects on 7th Grade Students’ Learning: A Collaborative Action Research

• Main Authors: Huang, Yao-Hsuan, 黃耀萱
• Other Authors: Kuo-Hua Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/92236520414644586172

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 科學教育研究所 === 99 === The primary purposes of the study were to integrate the history of science into the biology teaching for seventh graders via the use of the information technology, to find out the possible difficulties during the teaching procedures and offer solutions, to investigate whether seven graders improve their views of the nature of science and their learning achievement, and finally to analyze the perceptions of the students and the collaborative teachers toward the teaching model. The study applied the collaborative action research, and the subjects were 29 seventh graders of the same class. The research instruments were the Nature of Science Questionnaire, adapted from Weng(1997), and the Biological Achievement Test, developed by the researcher. The findings of the study were summarized as follows. First, in the view of the nature of science, there was a significant difference only in the Tentative aspect, while there were no significant differences in the Empirical, Problem-solving, Publicizing and Science and Life aspects. But there was a significant difference in the total scores, which showed that the students really improved their views of the nature of science. Second, in the biological learning achievement, there were significant differences between the scores of pre-test and post-test in the topics of Evolution, the Nomenclature and Classification of Biology and Greenhouse Effects. Besides, from the essay questions, the study found that the students improved a lot in their writing skills, expressing abilities and the levels of thinking, which showed that the students really improved their biological learning achievement. Finally, in the perceptions of the courses and teaching, both students and teachers showed positive attitudes toward the teaching model, and both showed great interest and confidence. In conclusion, the findings of the study supported that integrating the history of science into the biology teaching via the use of the information technology had positive effects on students’ views of the nature of science, students’ biological learning achievement and teachers’ professional development. Therefore, biology teachers were recommended to add the history of science to their teaching material design, and to present the materials with multiple teaching activities. Among the teaching activities, group discussion could maintain the students’ learning interests best, and teachers should provide better information technology environment in order to maximize the teaching effects.