The effects of computer-assisted material on students’ cognitive levels, misconceptions and attitudes towards science
Introduction
The well-known aim of science education is to teach the science concepts meaningfully and make students become aware of how these concepts can be used in their daily lives. In this process, learning the basic concepts during the primary and secondary education is very crucial in terms of learning the advanced concepts. It was argued that if new concepts were compatible with previous concepts, the meaningful learning would occur (Ausubel, 1968). It is important to know what prior knowledge students bring to a learning environment in order to help them construct new knowledge (Tsai, 2000).
The concepts are not materials, events or creatures but they are units of thought assembled into certain groups. They exist in ideas and only the examples of the concepts are found in the real world (Çepni, Ayas, Johnson, & Turgut, 1997).
Difficult and hardly understandable concepts may be differently structured in students’ mind. It is reported that students may have developed ideas about certain events and concepts before any formal instruction in science education (Amir & Tamir, 1994). The students’ conceptions, which may not be defined as scientific are named as “misconception”, “alternative conception”, “naive theories”, and “children science” in the literature (Barker and Carr, 1989, Simpson and Arnold, 1982, Treagust, 1988). In the last decade, there have been a number of studies focusing on student misconceptions about photosynthesis at middle and secondary schools (Erdmann, 2001, Hazel and Prosser, 1994).
It has been reported that the “photosynthesis” is one of the most important abstract concepts being difficult in teaching and learning at all levels of schooling (Bahar et al., 1999, Lawson and Thompson, 1988, Storey, 1989). This topic is taught by starting with primary school levels. It is also perceived by most teachers to be one of the most problematic concepts in the biology (Çapa, 2000, Eisen and Stavy, 1992).
Photosynthesis refers to the process in which the organic matters are synthesized from inorganic sources by using the energy of light (Schraer & Stoltze, 1990). It plays central role in understanding many aspects of living systems. All living things depend indirectly on photosynthesis for their food (Meyer et al., 1985). The energy that is used by all organisms is captured by means of photosynthesis system from the sunlight and it is stored in as carbohydrate in plant tissues (Gözükara, 1989). Even more importantly, an understanding of photosynthesis and respiration is a pre-requisite for any systematic understanding of ecology. Food chains and food web begin with photosynthesis and end in respiration. The photosynthesis and respiration play essential roles in the flow of energy through ecosystems. It is through photosynthesis and respiration that the energy in sunlight is captured and made available to support metabolic processes in all livings (Anderson, Sheldon, & DuBay, 1990). Because of the importance and the difficulty of the subject, science teachers seek for alternative teaching approaches in their teaching.
Once traditional teaching methods are used in teaching science subjects, students understand subject at knowledge level and they usually memorize the science concepts without understanding the real meaning. As a result, they do not conceptualize the science concepts well as intended. Thus, all these factors influence student’s attitudes, cognitive development and achievement in science and science education. It is obvious that alternative teaching approaches needed to teach this sort of difficult concepts in science education.
Today’s information and communications technologies can be applied to science education. Among these technologies, the use of computers is the most popular and well known in educational settings. Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) plays an important role in contemporary teaching and learning of science concepts (Chang, 2001). Besides, it is evident that for effective use of computers in science classroom, CAIMs need to be developed. Computers can be used as a supplementary tool in order to reach to educational goals (Bayraktar, 2000).
Many science teachers, researchers and other educators have recommended using CAIM in science classrooms. Some researchers argued that student achievement increases with the use of computers in science education (Chang, 2001, Coye and Stonebraker, 1994, Ferguson and Chapmen, 1993, Lee, 2001, Powell et al., 2003, Rowe and Gregor, 1999, Tjaden and Martin, 1995, Tsai and Chou, 2002). In addition, it is reported that student abilities and skills in scientific investigations are affected positively by CAI (Bayraktar, 2000, Shute and Bonar, 1986). Moreover, it is also stated that the use of computers makes students feel confident and helps them to discover interactions among the components of a complex system (Ramjus, 1990).
On the other hand, some researchers advocate that the traditional learning method is more useful than CAI in science teaching (Morrell, 1992, Wainwright, 1989). They argued that the use of computers negatively influences the students’ attitudes and achievement in the teaching learning process. Other researchers did not find an important difference between the methods (Coye and Stonebraker, 1994, Tjaden and Martin, 1995).
It was reported that CAI has some advantages in developing students’ abilities on making synthesis and evaluation (Baki, 2000). If CAI materials are developed and implemented in an effective way, student’s achievement and affinity increases in science lessons (Lee, 2001, Şahin and Yıldırım, 1999).
Using computer materials in teaching and learning science began in the 1980s in Turkey. Although computers were initially used in administrative works of schools, later they were increasingly utilized in science education as the qualified software and hardware became available. The Ministry of National Education and The World Bank signed an agreement to increase the quality of education in every level of Turkish schools in 1990. Many Curriculum Laboratory Schools equipped with laboratory materials were opened in this term (Çetinkaya et al., 1999). Since then most of the schools in urban areas have computers and the rest of them see computers as valuable tools in education and have been setting up computer laboratories in their schools.
Teachers play an important role in the use of computers in classrooms (Baki, 2000). It is for this reason that, the Turkish Ministry of National Education has been trying to train teachers in using computers in their teaching, by providing intensive in-service training courses. In conjunction with this, all faculties of education in Turkey have been providing computer courses for student teachers during their pre-service training period regardless of their disciplines since 1998 (YÖK, 1998).
Three aims of using computers in science education in Turkey were noted (Türkmen, 2000). Students should be able to
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use computers and have knowledge about the using area,
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become computer literate,
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support lessons with CAIMs.
Because of the availability of qualified hardware and software, the use of ICT has considerably increased in the teaching–learning process of science education in many parts of the world including Turkey (Bayraktar, 2000). Although there have been many CAIMs prepared for photosynthesis, we believe that there have been little research on how CAIMs influence students’ cognitive development, attitudes and misconceptions.
Section snippets
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of the CAIM (developed for the unit of photosynthesis) on students’ misconceptions, cognitive learning levels and attitudes towards science.
Computer software
The steps below were followed during the development process of CAIM:
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The content analysis of photosynthesis at high school level was made with science teachers, biologists at the university and science educators at the faculty of education.
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A detailed plan of the topic was done by taking into account difficult concepts in terms of learning and misconceptions about photosynthesis through reviewing the current literature and the researchers’ experiences.
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The presentation of the material was made by
Students’ achievement
As seen in Table 1, at the beginning the pre-test means of EG and CG was 51.55 and 50.46, respectively. These results showed that the sample’s present knowledge levels were very close to each other and there was not a statistical difference between the groups (t = 0.31, p > 0.05). At the end of the treatment, the post-test scores were 70.81 and 59.69 for two groups (approximately 10% change occurred at EC). A statistical significant difference was found between EG and CG (t = 2.27, p < 0.05). This
Discussion and conclusions
Many researchers argued in their investigations (or experiments) that CAIM is more influential than traditional teaching approaches on student’s academic achievement (Bayraktar, 2000, Chang, 2001, Coye and Stonebraker, 1994, Ferguson and Chapmen, 1993, Lee, 2001, Powell et al., 2003, Tjaden and Martin, 1995, Tsai and Chou, 2002). The findings of this study concerning the effects on students’ achievement are consistent with the ideas of the above authors. It was revealed in the study that the EG
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