Journal of Baltic Science Education

173-174

Authors: Editorial Board

Cover, JBSE, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2022

176-178

Authors: Jari Lavonen

Climate change and its mitigation represent a major global challenge, alongside biodiversity loss, global pandemics, and shortages of fresh water and food. It has the power to shape the environment and future; however, policymakers seek to prevent undesirable changes through environmental and education policies. Hinesjeffrey et al. (2013) consider climate education to be a major challenge. For example, the mitigation of climate change requires an understanding of climate change as a multidisciplinary phenomenon that must be considered in addition to the natural sciences, at least from the perspective of the social sciences, engineering, economics and education. This mitigation requires individuals to have a wide range of competences, such as creative and critical thinking and socioemotional skills (Hestness, 2015).

192-206

Authors: Busra Cengiz-Istanbullu, Gonul Sakiz

For long years, researchers in the field believed that the development of self-regulated learning (SRL) behaviors of students could only be initiated around middle school years. Nowadays, a growing number of research around the world attempt to challenge this belief by demonstrating that SRL behaviors and strategies can emerge in students at an earlier age than expected through proper training and eventually affect students’ positive academic outcomes in the learning process. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the use of self-regulated learning strategies (SRLS) on fourth-grade students’ academic self-efficacy, science motivation, academic worry, and achievement in a primary school science classroom. A pre-test – post-test control group quasi-experimental design was used. The participants were 39 fourth-grade students from a private primary school in Istanbul, Turkey. The SRLS (goal-setting, planning, note-taking, monitoring and self-evaluation) used in the study were explicitly taught to the students in the experimental group. The data were collected using two self-report questionnaires and an achievement test. A 2x3 Split-plot ANOVA test was used for data analyses. The results revealed that the use of SRLS significantly positively impacted students’ perceived academic self-efficacy, science motivation and academic achievement; and, significantly negatively affected their academic worry. The results of the retention tests, however, showed the necessity of continuous stimulation of SRLS to obtain optimal benefits for student outcomes.

224-231

Authors: Aleksandar Janković, Dragan Lambić

The application of student response systems could have a lesser effect on the science education of younger students compared to the effects achieved with older students in language and social science courses. The aim of this research was to determine the effect of the application of Kahoot and Quizizz on the academic achievement of third grade primary school students (9 years old) in a natural sciences course. A total of 113 third grade primary school students participated in this research. During the experimental phase which lasted 4 weeks, the participants were divided into three groups. Out of two experimental groups one group used Kahoot as a learning aid, while the other used Quizziz. The third group was the control group. At the beginning and at the end of the experimental phase, the participants were given an academic achievement test. The results of this research showed that the experimental group which used Kahoot for learning the content of the natural sciences course achieved significantly higher results in the post-test than the control group. There were no significant differences in the academic achievement of the group which used Quizizz and the other two groups. This result indicated that Kahoot could be used effectively as a learning aid in third grade primary education in the field of natural sciences.

245-257

Authors: King-Dow Su

This research conceived multivariate learning concepts and aimed at the implementation of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) life learning of face recognition, self-driving, and robots’ situational issues into problem-based learning (PBL) in natural science. This research put forward problem-solving and group cooperation in which students worked together to complete learning tasks from encountering problems to planning problem-solving. All 127 participants engaged in this research from the Hungkuo Delin University of Technology in Taiwan. 7 experts helped construct the content validity, construct validity, and reliability through instrument developments of 5 open-ended test questions and 31 learning attitude items. The statistical analyses revealed that those students improved their scientific cognitive skills of problem-solving by quantitative analyzes and presented their logical reasoning and activation ability by qualitative ones. In addition, the descriptive statistical analysis of learning attitude revealed that students had positive thinking attributes for the application of cross-disciplinary PBL and AI new knowledge. These findings had implications for the AI cognitions with PBL educational environment to increase innovation in the classroom. Pedagogical suggestions presented that students’ learning growth in the environment requires long-term cultivation to exhibit significant learning outcomes in the future.

275-287

Authors: Eser Ültay

Metaphors are expressions that are frequently used in people's minds to explain concepts with other unrelated concepts and have a personal emphasis on learning. The purpose of this study is to determine and interpret the metaphorical perceptions of primary school pre-service teachers towards environmental pollution. The "phenomenology" research design was used in this study. The study group of this research consists of a total of 372 primary pre-service teachers. Data were collected using semi-structured forms to determine the metaphorical perceptions of primary school pre-service teachers. The pre-service teachers were asked to complete the sentence, "Environmental pollution is like... because....". At the conclusion of multiple comparisons, by the relation degree between environmental pollution and its metaphors, it was determined that significant difference was in favour of the 2nd year between the 2nd and 4th years and in favour of the 3rd year between the 3rd and 4th years. As a result of the research, it was discovered that the majority of the metaphors produced by the pre-service teachers were in the "human" and "harmful/dangerous/uncomfortable situations" categories. Furthermore, the study discovered that as the year level increased, the number of related metaphors about environmental pollution decreased.

305-324

Authors: Hongjun Xing, Yanfang Zhai, Sisi Han, Yuping Zhao, Wenhui Gong, Yuting Wang, Jing Han, Qiaoyi Liu

Problem solving is considered one of the most critical competencies for life. However, many students may perform well in school yet cannot transfer the skills they learned in school to solve real-world problems, especially in science education. This study discusses the characteristics of the problem from the physics education perspective, based on Problem Representation Theory, and proposes a new type of problem: The Primitive Physics Problem. Moreover, the significance and contribution in promoting students' physics problem-solving ability, both theoretical and empirical, are described. Then the study develops a set of instruments that was tested on 811 students in 12th grade from 10 upper-secondary schools in China. The results showed that the new instrument had good reliability and validity. The promising application in the instruction of the Primitive Physics Problem and in measuring upper-secondary school students' problem-solving ability of the instrument is discussed.

342-344

Authors: Editorial Board

End, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2022, JBSE