The purpose of the study is to get implications of science writing in science education through investigating effects of science writing on scientific conception learning and scientific attitude of middle school students. The research questions are pr...
The purpose of the study is to get implications of science writing in science education through investigating effects of science writing on scientific conception learning and scientific attitude of middle school students. The research questions are proposed as follows:
First, does science writing affect students' scientific conception learning?
Second, does science writing affect students' scientific attitude?
On the basis of reviewed theories, the following hypotheses were formulated.
Hypothesis 1: Scientific conception learning abilities of students learned science writing would be better than those of regular classroom students.
1-1. The effect of interaction of scientific writing strategy and gender in their scientific attitude would be appeared.
1-2. The effect of interaction of scientific writing strategy and recognition level in scientific conception learning would be appeared.
1-3. The effect of interaction of scientific writing strategy and recognition style would be appeared.
Hypothesis 2: Students learned scientific writing would be more affected in their scientific attitude than regular class students.
2-1. The effect of interaction of scientific writing strategy and gender in their scientific attitude would be appeared.
2-2. The effect of interaction of scientific writing strategy and recognition level in their scientific attitude would be appeared.
2-3. The effect of interaction of scientific writing strategy and recognition style in their scientific attitude would be appeared.
The subject of the study is four classes of 7th graders, two classes of sixty two students being the experimental group and the other two of sixty four students the controlled group, who went through one class a week for sixteen weeks. The experimental group went through classes based on creative science writing activities and the controlled on through lecture-type using multimedia materials. Their scientific attitude of the two groups was examined prior to the going through classes, and after that, scientific conception learning and scientific attitude of the two groups were examined.
To analyze the effect of the classes gone through, two-way ANCOVA was conducted by covariance of the preliminary points and to analyze student's reaction to scientific writing, the frequency and percentage of students were conducted. The results of analyses are as follows:
First, scientific writing improves the ability of scientific conception learning. It is interpreted that scientific writing affects students learning of scientific conception through interpreting and organizing the information which is hit on by helping students with learning distinct scientific conception. In scientific conception learning, there was no meaningful effect of interaction between scientific writing learning strategy and different genders, levels of cognition, or styles of cognition. On the basis of gender, however, it affected girl students' abilities but not boy students' abilities. Scientific writing in the level of transitional and formal operation helped students with learning scientific conception but not in the level of concrete operation. Scientific writing did not affect Students' of field dependency and field independency in learning scientific concept.
Second, scientific writing improve middle school students' scientific attitude. Students' scientific attitude was examined by using the instrument before and after scientific learning. As a result, the scientific attitude of students in the experimental group was improved and the improved elements of scientific attitude were continuation, criticism and curiosity. This means that scientific writing learning strategy gets students to improve their power of observation as well as have curiosity about natural phenomena around them by changing students' learning attitude from theoretical thing to practical thing. In the aspect of scientific attitude change, there was no meaningful effect between scientific writing learning strategy and different genders, levels of cognition, or styles of cognition.
In the gender of students characteristic, scientific writing affect boy students but not girl students. In students' cognition level, scientific writing did not affect students in the low level of cognition of concrete operation and in the high level of cognition of formal operation. However it was very effective for students in the transitional level. In the cognition style scientific writing did not improve students scientific attitude exposed in the style of field dependency but it affected students meaningfully exposed in the style of field dependency. And students have positive conception on scientific writing. First of all, It is proved that girl students have higher interest than boy students in scientific writing. It was responded that scientific writing made students engage in science class actively and it was very helpful for students to understand scientific conception and solve real problems in every day life. Students responded that they are satisfied with the level of scientific writing and once a week of scientific writing class was enough for them. In the type of scientific writing students preferred scientific writing of flexibility and originality in creativity field such as writing imaginarily with a given cartoon, writing three lines of a verse, rewriting the words of songs, creating a new way of expression and writing by setting new situation,
As above scientific writing is a useful teaching learning activity not only to improve middle school students' scientific conception learning and scientific attitude but also to have the students get a positive recognition on scientific writing class. Also, scientific writing with real life material is believed to be very useful teaching learning activities in order to solve real problems in a scientific way with curiosity and interest in them.
Therefore, as a following study, it is needed to expand study subjects and analyze the effect on scientific writing. It is also needed to analyze the effect on scientific writing by students' characteristics like academic self conception and motivation for learning.