Journal of Baltic Science Education

132-133

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

The formation of scientific research activity abilities in comprehensive school is undoubtedly, a very important sphere still awaiting of particular attention. Current teaching and learning process has basically changed looking from the paradigmatic point of view. Teaching subjects become the means of realization of learners’ demands and interests. Scientific research activity is not an entertainment but a very responsible, thorough work requiring great self-independence. During this activity children’s analytic thinking becomes stronger, information search and usage abilities are being developed, they can learn to analyze the accumulated material, make presentations, prepare research reports and so on. By doing scientific research, learners approach new knowledge and new methods to solve problems of daily life. The main question is how to combine scientific research and science education. First of all we should elaborate specific policies how to encourage our learners to do scientific research. This is also very important from political point of view. Different scientific research conducted for the last 10 years showed that secondary school learners have a perception of science education as irrelevant and difficult. On the other hand Europe needs more scientists (EC, 2004). We should make all our efforts how to attract secondary school learners to the scientific activity and how to orientate them for scientist (researcher) career in the future.

147-154

Authors: Agnieszka Kamińska-Ostęp, Hanna Gulińska

Some pupils (about 10% to 15% of population) exhibit specific difficulties in learning called dyslexia. They cannot work effectively in the traditional educational system. Despite their hard work they usually achieve worse results compared to the pupils without this dysfunction. Learning difficulties caused by dyslexia are also observed in learning chemistry. The studies were aimed at finding which methods and educational means can assist the learning process of chemistry by dyslexic pupils. Their main characteristics was the fact that they took into account the specification of the thinking processes in these pupils. The studies proved that there are methods which have a positive effect on the process of learning chemistry by dyslexic pupils.

165-174

Authors: Michael Skoumios

The present paper focuses on instructional treatment of students’ conceptions about floating and sinking through sociocognitive conflict processes. In this direction a study was prepared including the detection of students’ conceptions of floating and sinking as well as the design, implementation and evaluation of teaching sequences implemented in 14 year-old students in Greece. Data collection was carried out through interviews and qualitative analysis of the students’ writings and talk during the teaching sequences. The analysis of the students’ writings and talk brought out their different reactions to sociocognitive conflict processes as well as the different learning outcomes of those processes as regards the change and construction of new conceptions.

185-192

Authors: Mika Huuhtanen, Jenni Ylä-Mella, Eila Jeronen, Riitta L. Keiski

The researcher education course for undergraduate engineering students has been developed in the Department of Process and Environmental Engineering at the University of Oulu. The course familiarizes students to research and researcher’s work and aims to encourage them toward a research career. The approach of the course is unique in the field of engineering education in Finland. In this paper, the establishment of the course is discussed in the light changing targets and requirements of higher engineering education. Further, the course development from contact lecturing toward distance education is described. Finally, the possibility to use new and more versatile learning methods together with the traditional lecturing methods is considered based on the feedback given by the students.

62-63

Authors: Pavol Prokop, Muhammet Usak

We are now glad to release the second issue of the third volume. In this issue there are four articles, again from a diverse set of topics and regions of the globe. In the past seven years JBSE has become known by almost every colleague in our field. Thus, we are receiving an increasing number of manuscripts every month. We would like to take this opportunity and thank all of our authors and diligent reviewers. We had gone through considerable difficulty to decide and choose articles for publication. We thank the members of the editorial board for doing the hard work in reviewing manuscripts and providing feedback to both authors and the editorial office. As you’ll see there are 4 articles published in this issue. Authors are from 4 different countries.

78-85

Authors: Mehmet Bahar, Murat Ozel, Pavol Prokop, Muhammet Usak

The purpose of this study was to find out the level of science student teachers’ understanding about the internal structure of the heart. The drawing method was applied to achieve this purpose with 120 third year science student teachers. The analysis of their drawings revealed that the majority of the science student teachers have several misconceptions as well as inadequate knowledge in terms of the heart’s internal structure. The importance of the findings was critically analysed in the light of the literature, and some suggestions were proposed to remedy the emerged problems.

103-121

Authors: Renāte Kalniņa

One of the most topical education tasks today is to provide an individual with a systematic self-managed learning possibility, through activating his/her reasoning potential and developing independent research work skills. The article deals with a system model of multi-level independent work organization concentrated on student’s learning and research activity in close interaction with the chemistry subject’s content. Being appropriate for training of modern seafaring (engineering) specialists and substantial for a student, it facilitates implementation of an independent, self-managed learning concept. The structural concept of the proposed model is based on a cooperation-oriented student’s practical and research activity. Alternately changing the structure elements it promotes: (i) development of the comprehension of the chemistry knowledge application and transformation; facilitates (ii) mastering of integrative knowledge and skills; improves (iii) chemistry learning productivity and scientific comprehension; strengthens (iv) self-regulated activity experience, thus ensuring the perfection of research activity competencies.

4

Authors: Andris Broks

Nowadays, there is an urgent need to increase the e f f e c t i v e n e s s of Natural Science and Technology Education (NSTE). To solve the corresponding problems, we need the appropriate development of S y s t e m i c NSTE D i d a c t i c s because all serious improvements in our modern life and education are systemic changes. Traditionally, the Professional NSTE systems in our schools are dominating and today it is one of the points, why we need serious improvement – the development of modern G e n e r a l N S T E as fundamental background of modern Professional NSTE, as well as modern General Education for all. It is urgent to turn special attention to principal difference in understanding the concept “didactics” by professional scientists/engineers and educators.

17-26

Authors: Mehmet Erdogan, Muhammet Usak, Halil Aydin

The purpose the study was to investigate the satisfaction level of prospective chemistry teachers with social services and facilities offered by their department and faculty, and also explore the effects of gender and university on the student satisfaction. 101 last year students in the chemistry teaching major in four different universities in Turkey participated in the study. The instrument, Prospective Science Teacher Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSTSQ) was used for data collection. PSTSQ consists of seven sub-themes on a five point Likert type scale. Pilot testing of the instrument indicated that Cronbach alpha (α) was 0.887. The findings revealed that prospective chemistry teachers expressed average level of satisfaction with social services and facilities provided by their faculties and departments. Furthermore, statistical analysis showed that there was no effect of gender on the satisfaction with social services and facilities, but the university enrolled strongly contributed to students’ satisfaction.

37-47

Authors: Pavol Prokop, Jana Fančovičová

Research into students’ concepts about the human body has focused on several organ systems, but the reproductive system has been largely overlooked. The few studies that addressed children’s concepts of birth were conducted mainly among kindergarten or primary school children. However, no study has yet attempted to examine how adolescent students perceive human pregnancy. We administered a Human Pregnancy Understanding Questionnaire (HPUQ) consisting of 50 Likert-type items to 300 university students in Slovakia. We found several misunderstandings of human fertilization, fetus respiration, and organ development. Moreover, several misconceptions found in Slovakian primary school children in the previous research still persist in adult students. Analysis of covariance shows that students’ HPUQ scores were significantly affected by gender whereas females have better scores than males. The effect of high school type attendance (with/without human biology course) did show only weak effect on students’ HPUQ score.