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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 13, Issue 1, Article 15 (Jun., 2012) |
This study used quasi-experiment to analyze students’ nanotechnology learning outcome between expositive-teaching and experiential-teaching. Before the experiment, we used “Nanotechnology Situational Questionnaire (NSQ)”, tested 110 fifth grade students and conducted 2 steps teaching. The first step took 4 sessions for a subtotal of 160 minutes, the teacher taught all students about nanotechnology concepts by PowerPoint, animation, and movies. The second step separated the 110 students into 2 groups of 55 students each and labeled them “comparison group” and “treatment group”. The comparison group used expositive-teaching method by the PowerPoint, animation and movies, on the other hand, the treatment group used experiential-teaching by hand-on approach. After the experiment, two groups conducted the NSQ posttest. According to the pretest, posttest data and inquired the learning effect for the two different teaching methods. The results can be applied to future nanotechnology curriculum design in Taiwan (Table 1).
Table 1. Experiment Design and Teaching Content
Procedure
Teaching content & Practice
Before teaching
Conducted NSQ pretest
Teaching
Step 1
(160 Min)
Teaching content (160 Min)：Expositive-teaching
Nanometer definitions (40 Min); Surface effect (40 Min); Size effect (40 Min); Photonic crystals (40 Min).
Method：
Instructor prepared the PowerPoint slides, animation, movies related to the nanotechnology conception
Teaching
Step 2
(120 Min)
Teaching content (120 Min)：
Lotus effect (40 Min),Carbon-Nanocapsule (40 Min),Inquire the atomic structure of Nanoparticles e and Nanotubes (40 Min).
Method：
1.Treatment group: Experiential-teaching
content and action
Lotus effect: Drip some water and some dust on the lotus leaf, and then observe the interaction of water and dust.
Nanoparticles : Burn the bottom part of a cup and drip a drop of water into it, while moving the water drop around the cup and observe the interaction between water and carbon deposit.
Inquire the atomic structure of Carbon-Nanocapsule and Nanotubes: Construct C20, C60, C80 and C120 atomic structures.
2.Comparison group: Expositive-teaching
Instructor prepared the PowerPoint slides, animation, movies of the lotus effect, Carbon-Nanocapsule and inquire the atomic structure of Carbon-Nanocapsule and Nanotubes.
After teaching
Conducted NSQ posttest
We selected 110 fifth grade students from New Taipei city in Northern Taiwan. According to pretest NSQ, students were assigned to treatment and comparison groups (55 students each). The t-test of the NSQ pretest score (t=.169, -.305, 1.057; p=.682,.761,.293) revealed no significant differences between the 2 groups. The result showed two groups were similar in academic performance (Table 2).
Table 2. Analysis Two Groups in the NSQ Pretest Scores
Instrument
Group
n
Mean
SD
t value
p value
Total
Comparison
55
12.16
3.190
.169
.682
Treatment
55
11.87
4.164
Teaching
step 1
Comparison
55
6.18
1.877
-.305
.761
Treatment
55
6.31
2.456
Teaching
step 2
Comparison
55
5.98
1.995
1.057
.293
Treatment
55
5.56
2.150
*p＜.05 **p＜.01
The NSQ was created according to expert concept map, declarative knowledge statement in elementary school nanotechnology curriculum. And NSQ was designed to assess student’s comprehension-ability in nanotechnology concepts that contained 12 situations, 25 questions by 4 multiple-choices.
After NSQ first draft was created, we have selected 6 elementary middle-grade students to read the NSQ first draft and modified the unclear questions and choices. Then we invited two science professors and five experienced primary school teachers to comment on the content validity of the questions. Finally, the pretest of the NSQ draft was conducted with 232 sixth grade elementary school students, who had finished learning content. The internal consistency of the NSQ was .80, the question difficulties were between .32 and .77, and the discrimination indicated between .38 and .71 (Table 3).Table 3. Situation and Questions of NSQ
Content
NSQ
Content
NSQ
Situation
Number of questions
Situation
Number of questions
Nanometer definitions
1
3
Lotus effect
8
3
Surface effect
2
3
4
1
10
1
Nanoparticles
Carbon-Nanocapsule7
2
Size effect
3
2
11
2
5
1
Nanotubes
9
1
Photonic crystals
6
2
12
2
9
2
TOTAL
25
We collected student data from pretest and posttest NSQ. By using SPSS17.0, we analyzed the learning effect of comparison and treatment groups.
