 |
Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 16, Issue 2, Article 6 (Dec., 2015) |
Participants and Research Design
In this study a quasi-experimental research method was used (Glass & Hopkins, 1996). The participants of this study consisted of 295 (127 male, 168 female) high school students who were enrolled in 11th and 12th grade physics course in four high schools located in Düzce, Turkey. In Turkey, a national exam was administered to determine students’ achievements at the end of the secondary school. According to students’ performances on this exam, they managed to enter the selective high schools such as Science High School, Anatolian High School etc. All students who participated this study were enrolled at Science and Anatolian High Schools, so participants might be defined as more successful group within the high schools in Düzce. The content of physics course was determined by the Ministry of National Education and the same content is followed in all science classes in Turkey. At the beginning of a physics course, GEFT and Motivational Styles Questionnaire were administered to identify students’ FD/FI cognitive styles and motivational styles (curious, conscientious, achiever and social) respectively. After the instruction regarding concepts about direct current circuits was completed, DIRECT was administered to determine students’ conceptual understandings.
Instruments
Group Embedded Figures Test
In order to identify students’ cognitive styles, GEFT developed by Witkin et. al. (1977) was used. This version of GEFT was devised and calibrated by El-Banna (1987) from Witkin et al’s (1977) original test material. This test was translated and adapted into Turkish by Bahar (2003a). The reliability coefficient (Cronbach Alpha) was calculated as 0.812.GEFT includes 20 complex figures. Simple shapes are located in the last page of the GEFT booklet as a specimen of the type to be found. Students were required to recognize and identify a hidden simple shape in each set of complex figures and to outline it by a pen or pencil on the lines of the complex figure. Students were supposed to complete the test in 20 minutes. At the beginning of the test, the instructions about the testing procedure were explained to them.
Motivational Styles Questionnaire
Students’ motivational styles were identified by a questionnaire which was established based on Adar’s (1969) and Hofstein and Kempa’s (1985) work. However, the questionnaire which was used by the above mentioned researchers were modified into the form that was used in this research. This version of the questionnaire had been used in previous studies (Al-Naeme 1991; Lyall & Johnstone, 1999) and the validity and the reliability was already established. It was translated and adapted into Turkish by Bahar (2003b).The questionnaire consisted of the statements made by female and male students regarding different aspects of teaching and learning environment about class work, laboratory work, discovery learning and social life. In the questionnaire, the statements of four individuals about different aspects of teaching and learning were presented in balloon form. The students in the sample were required to choose one of the individuals that agreed with most and to write that name down in the space at the end of each row. The following criteria is used to classify students into their motivational styles: If a student chooses four curious statements (ratio 4:0), or three curious statements and one of the others (ratio 3:1) or two curious, one achiever and one social (ratio 2:1:1), s/he is classified as curious. However, if s/he picks two curious and two of any others such as two conscientious or two achiever (ratio 2:2) or if s/he chooses four statements that all statements were different (ratio 1:1:1:1) s/he is regarded as unclassifiable. This pattern emerged as above giving the ratio 2:2 or 1:1:1:1 was considered as normal because people are thought to have a mixture of these characteristics except that they would display a bias towards one in particular.
Before starting the test, the students were informed about what they are requested to do in the test and each student was asked to sit next to each other with enough space to prevent them from interacting with others and copying from others.
Determining and Interpreting Resistive Electric Circuit Concepts Test (DIRECT)
Students’ conceptual understandings of direct current circuits were assessed by DIRECT, developed by Engelhardt and Beichner (2004). The test was used to determine students’ conceptual understandings and misconceptions about DC circuits in various studies (Ateş, 2005; Başer, 2006; Başer and Durmuş, 2010). The DIRECT is a multiple choice test that probes students’ common sense beliefs about concepts related to direct current circuits. This test was translated and adapted into Turkish by Ateş (2005). According to Ateş, Test’s reliability coefficient was 0.74. When the data was analysed by using KR-20 reliability test, the reliability coefficient was found as 0.70 in this study.The test consists of 29 multiple choice questions with 5 options. Students were given 30 minutes to complete the test. If a student selects the correct option, one point was given for each test item, but no point was given for students’ wrong selections.
