Journal of Baltic Science Education

149-150

Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, JBSE, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2019

152-157

Authors: Paolo Bussotti

The concept of form is one of the most intuitive within our experience. When we say that two objects of different dimensions have or do not have the same form there is not properly a reflexion behind this claim. Rather, it is, at all appearances, based on our visual faculties, which is perfectly in order in the context of our daily life. This intuitive and visual notion of form is suitable to the necessities of our practical, or also esthetical, experience. However, on second thought, things are not so easy: suppose that I look at an object and I find that it is circular. I claim, hence, that it is a circle and my statement is correct. Another person looks at this object from another point of view and sees that this object is an ellipsis or a hyperbola or a parabola. He is not wrong. This person is not the prey of a dream or of a hallucination. He is observing the world from another point of view, or as usually told in mathematics and physics, from another reference frame.

171-183

Authors: Serkan Aslan

Teaching programs based on contemporary learning-teaching approaches have been regulated since the 2005-2006 academic year in Turkey. Nevertheless, the researches conducted in Turkey suggested that teachers mostly use traditional teaching-learning approaches in their classroom activities. Therefore, this research aimed at enhancing the students’ academic achievement through the use of argumentation and scenario based learning approaches among the contemporary teaching-learning approaches in order to guide teachers. Experimental design with pre-test and post-test control group was used in the present research. This research was conducted with 45 fourth grade primary school students. The research was conducted with two experimental groups and one control group. Activities related to argumentation-based teaching were administered to the experimental group 1, activities with scenario-based learning method for the experimental group 2, and those of the existing curriculum for the control group. The research deployed an academic achievement test based on the unit of "Let’s Solve the Riddle of Our Body". Independent samples t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and covariance analysis (ANCOVA) were used during data analysis. Research results revealed that the academic achievement of the students was significantly influenced by the activities related to argumentation-based teaching and scenario-based learning method.

197-208

Authors: Bo Chen, Bing Wei, Yuhua Mai

On the basis of the model of the interactive relationship between teachers and curriculum materials, this research proposed the four dimensions of the interaction of chemistry teachers with curriculum materials: ‘routine use’, ‘scientific inquiry’, ‘STSE’ and ‘teacher learning’. An instrument with good validity and reliability was developed. Through a questionnaire survey of 208 junior high school chemistry teachers in three areas in Guangzhou, China, it was found that teachers thought they had a good interaction with curriculum materials, but the level of interaction is not very high. Teachers from different administrative areas were significantly different in the dimensions of ‘STSE’ and ‘teacher learning’; teachers with different years of teaching experience showed significant differences in the dimensions of ‘routine use’, ‘scientific inquiry’ and ‘STSE’. There was no interaction effect between the two variables of the areas and years of teaching. Designing educative curriculum materials and developing teacher training activities in terms of curriculum use are recommended to further improve teachers’ ability to use curriculum materials.

227-238

Authors: Shyang-Chyuan Fang

With the rapid rise of global temperatures and the negative effects of greenhouse gases, the destruction of natural resources and unlimited development is rapidly endangering the earth. The inefficient use of meat-based agriculture has contributed to contemporary concerns about environmental degradation and global food inequality. Therefore, the research attempted to establish a theoretical model to predict and explain the effects of health risks on vegetarian behavioral intention under climate change. The research investigated the vegetarian behavioral intention of university students derived from environmental perception, environmental attitude, and health risk perception. The research involved six universities in Taiwan, with a total of about 25,000 university students. A total of 1050 replies was received from the questionnaires, were carefully revised and all items were confirmed. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and Smart PLS data analysis were used to find the applicability of the survey data and the research model. The results showed that personality traits, health risk perception, and environmental value positively influence vegetarian behavioral intention. The model facilitated the evaluation of the variables related to environmental responsibility and behavior and could serve as a reference for policy decision-makers and teaching staff in terms of sustainable education.

254-263

Authors: Tanja Gnidovec, Gregor Torkar

The present research explores benefits of using young students’ drawings in combination with written responses for gathering information about science concepts. Younger students are still very limited in their verbal expression and less biologically literate than older students. The aim was to determine primary school students’ conceptions about owls, experiences with owls and their sources of information, and to then determine how beneficial it is to combine information gathered from drawings and written responses in comparison to previous research done with lower secondary school students. Altogether, 280 students attending fourth and fifth grades from schools in Slovenia participated in the research. Students knew well the specific features of owls. Drawings provided more clear information about body parts and proportions, while owls’ specific habitats, behaviours and diet were more thoroughly described in their written responses. Students without experiences with living owls represented owls less thoroughly. Comparison of frequencies of responses in main categories of conceptions about owls showed that using drawings and written responses is equally beneficial for younger and older students. Gathering primary school students’ conceptions about science concepts with both drawings and written responses enables better assessment of a student’s knowledge than using just drawings or written responses.

276-285

Authors: Konstantinos Ravanis

Student’s mental representations of physical concepts are often different from those of scientists. The research aimed to identify and compare mental representations of light propagation time by school children aged 10 (132 subjects), and 14 (109 subjects) years old. This research was conducted through individual interviews in which the students were asked to locate light propagation time in various tasks-experimental situations. The results of this research show that even though the students of two groups face difficulties in understanding light propagation time, as they grow older, they make statistically significant progress in constructing the conception of light propagation time. These findings allow to seek out educational perspectives on the understanding of the conception of light propagation time in organised scholastic environments.

300-313

Authors: Constantina G. Stefanidou, Konstantina D. Tsalapati, Anastasia M. Ferentinou, Constantine D. Skordoulis

Static electricity is the introductory chapter to electricity in all high school and university Physics textbooks. The interpretations of static electricity phenomena are not obvious, even in higher education. This research was conducted to identify the major difficulties which pre-service primary teachers encounter in explaining static electricity. They conducted electrostatic experiments focused on different types of electricity, in the context of an Introductory Physics Laboratory Course. The data were collected through the reports they wrote at the end of the course. The qualitative content analysis method was used in order to analyze the data. The sample, which was a convenient one, consisted of 200 pre-service primary teachers, 170 females and 30 males. The analysis showed that pre-service primary teachers have considerable difficulty conceptualizing the microscopic processes – more specifically, charging by induction – that explain these phenomena. The different roles electrons play in conductors and insulators seemed to pose difficulties for pre-service primary teachers. The findings implied an emphasis on microscopic models during macroscopic experimental processes. This could help pre-service primary teachers to understand the role of electrons in conductors and insulators and the different mechanisms involved in different types of charging.