JURE 2012 Programme book - EARLI Jure 2012

JURE 2012 Conference Programme Wednesday, July 25
Weather-­‐related knowledge development-­‐variations in different ability groups
Elina Malleus
Current longitudinal study examined seventh grade students beliefs about different types of
clouds, rainfall and rainbow formation. Research provides an overview of the specifics of
students thinking and the process of knowledge development emphasizing the importance of
prior knowledge. Previous studies have shown difficulties in understanding different scientific
concepts. Clouds, rain and rainbow are noticeable for every child but the understanding of
forming mechanisms requires verbal-­‐taught knowledge. That leads children of forming their
own non-­‐scientific ideas.
The purpose of the study was to describe children ideas about weather phenomenon and give an
overview of their learning process-­‐ essence in different mental ability groups. 64 children (24
boys and 40 girls) were tested three times at grade 7-­‐before, right after and three months after
learning new information. Research test included weather related questions and mental ability
tests.
It was found that students` percentage of right answers increased right after learning and also
during three months after learning when children had time to adjust new knowledge to existing
context. Study also showed differences learning weather-­‐related concepts in various ability
groups where children in medium ability test results group gave better results right after
learning and children in higher ability test results group gave more right answers three months
after learning compared to results before learning.
Effects of the use of concept maps in context-­‐based Chemistry education on students’
performance, attitude and on forming of cognitive mental maps
Johannes Vogelzang
Rosanne C. Zwart, & Wilfried F. Admiraal
Background. Worldwide the innovation of science curricula shifts to more context-­‐based
approaches. These courses claim to address the major problems that Science education
currently faces: curriculum overload, irrelevant content, problems to transfer the knowledge
taught to other contexts and the fact that too many students do not achieve coherent mental
maps. However, it is still unclear how a context-­‐based course can improve students’ motivation
and performance.
Aim. In the current study, the use of concept maps was studied as a way to implement context-­‐
based Science education. We examined the effects of the use of concept maps on the creation of
coherent mental maps, on students’ attitude towards Chemistry and their performance.
Method. Participants were 58 Grade 11 students from senior general secondary education and
50 Grade 11 students from pre-­‐university education. All students were from one secondary
school in the Netherlands.
A pretest-­‐posttest quasi-­‐experimental design was used. The students attended five classes on
Antibiotics of 75 minutes each. They were randomly assigned to one of two different treatments:
half of them were assigned to a treatment with concept maps in which they actively and
explicitly constructed their knowledge. The other half were assigned to a treatment with
formative assessments. These assessments contained questions on the subject talked about. The
former treatment was our experimental condition; the latter was the control condition. Students’
performance was measured by a pretest, posttest and a retention test. Students’ attitude
towards Chemistry was measured by a questionnaire with 32 five-­‐points Likert type items,
before and after the course.
Results. This is research in progress. Spring 2012 results will be available.
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