Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 3, Issue 1, Article 3(June, 2002) Wheijen CHANG, Alister JONES and Rainer KUNNEMEYER Interactive Teaching Approach in Year One University Physics in Taiwan: Implementation and Evaluation Previous Contents Next

Introduction

Despite the burgeoning literature on innovation in tertiary science education in recent decades, in Taiwan, the instructional methods of many science classes have remained unchanged and dominated by the traditional didactic teaching. This type of teaching approach appears in most of the year one university physics as well as high school physics classes. In both high school and tertiary classrooms, physics teachers' major tasks involve describing physics principles, demonstrating mathematical skills, and working through textbook exercises, while the students' tasks are limited to listening and copying notes.

The literature in science education has indicated the crucial role of learners' engaging in cognitive processing¹ as well as to participate in social practice² when learning physics, and thus challenges the traditional didactic teaching approach. Both constructivist and sociocultural views of learning suggest that the focus of science classes should shift from teaching content to a greater consideration of the learning process. As McDermott (1993)³ summarized from many studies in physics education research:

Teaching by telling is an ineffective mode of instruction for most students. Students must be intellectually active to develop a functional understanding. (p.297)

A teaching approach, which provides time and questions for students to think and discuss, and which cultivates a supportive classroom atmosphere to promote interactions between students and the teacher, and amongst peers, was found to be crucial to promote learners' intellectual engagement in class⁴. This type of teaching approach is defined as interactive teaching in this study, in contrast to the more uni-directional delivery type of instruction typified by didactic teaching.

In the context of first year university physics courses in western countries, many studies have adopted an interactive teaching approach and found that it promotes students' participation in the learning process, and is beneficial to the students' performance⁵. However, most of the studies have focused on the evaluation of academic performance⁶, and very few studies have explored the students' affective learning outcomes and their perceptions of learning⁷.

The literature in science education highlights that students' perceptions of learning is influential to their learning focuses and strategies⁸. In the context of university physics, several studies have investigated the students' epistemological beliefs of how and what to learn⁹. However, these studies mostly investigated students taught with a traditional teaching approach in western countries. There appears to be a lack of studies exploring students' perceptions of learning and teaching in the context of Asian countries, particularly when taught with an interactive teaching approach.

The purpose of the study presented in this paper was to compare the learning outcomes of classes taught with an interactive teaching approach and those taught with a traditional didactic teaching approach in year one university physics in Taiwan. A wide scope of learning outcomes was examined, which included academic achievement, affective outcomes, and perceptions of learning.