Journal of Baltic Science Education

293-294

Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, JBSE, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2014

296-297

Authors: Peter Heering

During the 20th century, the sciences have been considered as disciplines that are significantly distinct from the humanities, C.P. Snows term of the “two cultures” has become the key word for this development. However, recent science studies produced arguments for the thesis that sciences are also a cultural activity. As a consequence, science and the related practices become time dependent – what was an accepted scientific practice in a particular period would not meet the standards of another period. Understanding science as a cultural activity poses several challenges to educators, but offers also opportunities. One approach that meets these opportunities is the implementation of the history of science in science education. In the following, two specific approaches in this respect will be discussed: storytelling and the reenactment of historical experiments.

316-326

Authors: Fatma Sasmaz Oren, Ummuhan Ormanci

In this study, it is aimed to identify science and technology pre-service teachers’ ideas about the digestive system by using the drawing method. The study was conducted with 95 third and fourth grade pre-service teachers studying at science and technology teacher education department. In the study, a drawing test and The Draw -A-Digestive System Test Rubric (DADST-R), which is developed by the researchers for the analysis of drawings, were used. The scores that science and technology pre-service teachers get from DADST-R are examined in terms of sub-dimensions and the dimension they are best at is found to be digestive system organs while the dimension they are having the most trouble with is establishing connections among digestive system organs. Based on these results, some suggestions were given with regards to the role of the digestive system in the education system.

339-350

Authors: Emine Çil

The study investigated the influence of conceptual change approach on elementary students’ views of certain aspects of nature of science (NOS). In this study, conditions of conceptual change were provided through the use of conceptual change texts and concept cartoons. In addition, this study compared the influence of the conceptual change approach to that of the explicit reflective inquiry-oriented and implicit instructional approaches in the teaching of NOS. The research was conducted with seventh-grade students (aged 12-13 years) at a school in Turkey’s Aegean region. A total of 69 students participated in the study. The students’ views of NOS were assessed using a questionnaire, (the Views of Nature of Science Elementary Level Scale) as pre-test and post-test in conjunction with data from semi-structured interviews. This study reveals that the best way to remedy the naïve views of students on NOS is a conceptual change framework.

361-380

Authors: Ján Záhorec, Alena Hašková, Martin Bílek

During the last decades, multimedia assisted teaching has expanded to all types and levels of schools. The authors dealt with a question whether there is a possibility through the application of multimedia teaching materials in the natural science school subjects to eliminate students' negative attitudes to these subjects. To answer this question, a research was carried out in which the attention was paid to possibilities to eliminate students` negative attitudes to physics as the most unpopular school subject. The authors show how various aspects of students` opinion on physics can be changed due to the use of animations and interactive simulations of the physical phenomena in the teaching process. For the pedagogical intervention two kinds of multimedia teaching materials were used. The difference between them was in the level of their interactivity. Within the research students` attitudes to physics through the given explored aspects were assessed twice, once before the multimedia teaching material pedagogical intervention and the second time after it. As the research results show, although it is possible to certain rate to eliminate students` negative attitudes to physics, this possible elimination depends also on the level of the intractivity of the used multimedia teaching materials.

394-410

Authors: Murat Demirbaş

The main purpose of science education is to enable students to connect concepts with daily life and establish relations between the concepts. Thus, many implementations related to constructivism have been carried out. The aim of the study is to explore how students’ conceptual perceptions related to “Force and Motion” subject changed with meaningful learning. Pre-test -post test single group design, one of the experimental research designs, were used in the research. In order to interpret the students’ results in meaningful learning process, Conceptual Perception Test related to Force and Motion subject (CPTFM) was developed and the test was composed of five open-ended questions. The content of the items in the test was developed in such a way to include “Action-Reaction Law”, “Gravity”, and “Pairs of Balanced Forces.” The points obtained from the evaluation instrument were evaluated according to the levels created by the researcher. 35 students in their third year of study in the Department of Science Teaching participated in the study. The results of the study revealed that meaningful learning activities made positive contributions to pre-service teachers’ conceptual perceptions related to force and motion concepts.

425-435

Authors: Elif Atabek-Yiğit, Nesibe Köklükaya, Melike Yavuz, Eda Demirhan

In this study, the development and validation of the Environmental Literacy Scale for Adults (ELSA) is explained. The data were collected from 332 adults whose ages ranged from 18 to over 56. The principal component analysis rotated to varimax rotation was used to obtain evidence for the validity of the scale. The scale was composed of 20 items and had three main dimensions: “environmental consciousness”, “environmental anxiety” and “environmental awareness”. A reliability analysis of the instrument revealed Cronbach-Alpha coefficients of 0.881 for the whole of the scale, 0.807 for the first dimension, 0.765 for the second dimension and 0.715 for the last dimension. Considering the results obtained from the validity and reliability studies, it can be asserted that ELSA can be used to determine adults’ views and levels of environmental literacy.