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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 12, Issue 1, Article 7 (Jun., 2011) |
A case study strategy was used to better understand the phenomenon holistically and in-depth. Case study is a research design that explores the case under scrutiny within its borders and which is used where the borderlines between the case and its environment are not clear and where more than one source of proof or data exist (Yildirim and Simsek, 2006). PBL work has been executed in Zonguldak Anatolian Girls Vocational High School in Turkey, with the participation of 22 students at 9th grade at the beginning of Education Year 2008-2009. All of students were girls. It is worth noting that the participating students were purposefully chosen as the sample of this study since they all had experience in problem based learning during physics lessons.
The survey data was collected through semi-structured interviews, a qualitative method, in order to gain insights into students’ and teachers’ opinions. As such, the aim was not necessarily to produce data that can be generalized to larger populations, but rather to explore the range of attitudes and beliefs that were held. The interview was a “purposeful conversation” between two people (or more) with the explicit purpose of gaining information from the other (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003).
Nine teachers and thirteen students in PBL process were also interviewed during the study to find out their experiences of working on their projects in a PBL context. Interview questions that asked to students included “What are some problems that you have encountered?,” “How do you find this PBL process?,” and “What have you learned?”. Besides, one question was only directed to teachers individually. The question asked them was ‘What are your opinions and views about our science circus?’ Interview was a method, which was qualitative, in order to gain insights into teachers’ and students’ opinions. The data was analyzed by the descriptive statistics, and then the findings were digitalized and presented.
In this section, meeting the problem for PBL process is presented first. Then, findings about the two samples of PBL teaching design are presented. Finally, in findings, the participants’ and teachers’ views about PBL process are presented.
