Journal of Baltic Science Education

831

Authors: Editorial Board

Contents

836-854

Authors: Tormi Kotkas; Jack Holbrook; Miia Rannikmäe

Students’ lack of motivation in learning school science has been recognized as a problem, due to its negative impact on students´ STEM-related career choices. For supporting students´ motivation to study science, the use of an introduction which sets the scene, sometimes called a scenario, has been recommended. Although scenarios, which introduce STEM-related careers in an everyday life problem solving context, are seen as useful tools for the teachers, they are not automatically guaranteed to be motivating to students. The current research aims to develop an empirically tested and validated instrument to measure the impact of context-based scenarios, through evaluating perceived motivational triggers such as relevance, interest and enjoyment by 7th grade students. An analysis of students´ responses showed that the test scenario was able to trigger mostly situational interest toward the topic of energetics. Only a small number of students indicated motivation to take the learning of this topic further.

873-897

Authors: Kateřina Chroustová, Martin Bílek, Andrej Šorgo

The aim of this research was to empirically validate constructs for evaluation of teachers' attitudes toward usage of educational software in chemistry teaching. Questionnaire with items transformed from UTAUT (Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology) and other technology acceptance theories were filled in by 556 Czech chemistry teachers. All constructs passed recommended .7 thresholds of Cronbach’s alpha so they can be used in acceptability researches before and after introduction of educational software or building models. However, analyses of effect sizes show that there are not only differences between users and all nonusers generally, but also prove differences between various types of nonusers. Nonusers were established as a) those who had used educational software and abandoned it; b) those who do not use educational software, but are planning to use it in the future, and c) those who do not use educational software and have no intentions to use it. An unexpected finding reveals that differences among subgroups of nonusers can be even larger than between users and nonusers, especially the group c) is an outstanding group. Consequently, factors and their influence on the acceptance and use of educational software in chemistry teaching should be explored for each group separately.

908-918

Authors: I Putu Artayasa, Herawati Susilo, Umie Lestari, Sri Endah Indriwati

Teacher training students require the mastery of science process skills (SPS) to improve their performance in teaching science. The purpose of this research was to (1) compare the difference in effectiveness between the three levels of inquiry (structured, guided, open inquiry) and the conventional strategy in improving SPS; (2) compare the differences in effectiveness between the three levels of inquiry and conventional strategy in improving the integrated science process skills (ISPS), especially the skills of preparing experimental procedures, collecting data, presenting data, discussing data, and making conclusion. This research was a quasi-experimental: pre-test post-test non-equivalent control group design. The sample of this research consisted of 154 students of Teacher Training for Elementary School Education of University of Mataram. The data were collected by using SPS test and the scoring of experiment report. The data were analyzed by using ANCOVA and the Kruskal Wallis test. The results indicate that there is a significant difference in the effectiveness between the three levels of inquiry and the conventional strategy in improving SPS. Among the three levels of inquiry itself, there is no any significant difference. On the ISPS, the open inquiry has the highest effectiveness and the structured inquiry has the lowest effectiveness.

932-945

Authors: Hwoe-gwan Yang, Jongwon Park

Even though experimental design (ED) in open inquiry is important for more authentic scientific inquiry, it is not easy for students. The objective of this research was to identify factors considered important in students' ED and explore how to utilize it to improve students’ ED. To achieve the objective, in the first step, eighteen middle-school students in a gifted center participated in this study voluntarily. They were asked to design experimental procedures without any guidelines or help. Students’ EDs were analyzed qualitatively to extract difficulties that students experienced when designing experimental procedures. Based on analysis results, 17 factors were identified as factors to be considered for students’ ED and structured in a form of checklist. In the second step, the checklist was provided to 50 students in the gifted center as guidelines for their ED. They were then asked to design experimental procedures. Comparing scores of these students’ ED with those of the control group, it was found that these factors were significantly effective for improving students’ ED with high effect size. In conclusion, results of this research suggest that effective teaching strategy for students’ ED in scientific open inquiry can be obtained based on analysis about their difficulties in ED.

958-979

Authors: Jan Andersson, Margareta Enghag

More knowledge of how the actual design of the laboratory work influence students’ communication, is needed to design and implement physics laboratory work lessons. The aim with this quantitative research, conducted at a Swedish upper secondary school, was to explore how the design of the laboratory work affects students’ communication. Twenty students divided into five groups participated in this natural case study and were video recorded while performing four practical tasks with the theme uniformly accelerated motion, designed by their teacher. The four workstations were categorised based on three predefined descriptors: outcome, approach and procedure. Students’ work at each workstation was coded according to five defined activities: planning, preparing equipment, collecting data, processing data and analysis of results. The activities were thereafter divided into shorter episodes that were coded for three different types of communication: disputational talk, cumulative talk and exploratory talk. The result shows that the amount of exploratory talk students engaged in are influenced by the style of the laboratory work and the character of the activity. Based on these research results, teachers can better accustom the laboratory work to facilitate fruitful physics discussions which endorse students’ learning.

994-1008

Authors: Sinem Dinçol Özgür, Ayhan Yılmaz

Inquiry-based learning is a usable approach in developing gifted and talented students’ learning and one that overlaps with their properties and learning needs. The aim of this research was to examine the effect of guided inquiry-based learning approach compared with that of traditional teacher-centered instruction on gifted and talented eighth grade students’ understanding of acids-bases concepts and motivation towards science learning. A nonequivalent control group design was used in the research. The participants were 40 gifted and talented eighth grade students from one Science and Art Center in Ankara/Turkey. There were two different groups: the experimental group and the control group. The Acids and Bases Diagnostic Test and Students’ Motivation towards Science Learning questionnaire were used in the research as data collection tools. Before and after the implementation, the tools were administered as pre-test and post-test to both groups. For data analysis the independent samples t-test and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used. The results showed that there was a statistical significant difference between the groups in favor of the experimental group.

1020-1034

Authors: Zulkarnaen, Z.A. Imam Supardi, Budi Jatmiko

Creative exploration, Creative elaboration, Creative modeling, Practice scientific creativity, Discussion and Reflection (C3PDR) teaching model is a model specifically developed to improve the students’ scientific creativity of junior high school. This research is aimed to analyze the feasibility of C3PDR model in improving the students’ science creativity. The teaching model is considered feasible if it meets the criteria: valid, practical and effective. Ninety-six of the eighth-grade students in Samarinda, Indonesia who attended the science subjects participated in the research during the odd semester in academic year 2015/2016. Its validation was performed by three science education experts through focus group discussions and using validation sheets. The practicality of the model was assessed by 4 teachers using the observation sheets and the effectiveness of the model was determined based on the pre-test post-test of scientific creativity. Scientific creativity measured using Scientific Creativity Structure Model (SCSM) test. The results showed that this model has the content and construct validity in very valid category, practical, and effective with the statistic percentage of agreement R > 85% and n-gain values = .42, and p < .05. Thus, the C3PDR teaching model is feasible to improve the student’s scientific creativity of junior high school.