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Asia-Pacific Forum
on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 9, Issue 2, Article 2
(Dec., 2008) |
Teachers have a very important role in realization of the correct education concepts. The educational approaches of today make emphasis the student instead of teacher. The student centered educational approach requires students to be more active in the classroom and participate at all levels (Demirel, 2005).
In traditional teaching methods, teacher-centered approaches dominate the teaching process. The teacher gives information to students, and the students’ duty is to learn information that is given by teacher. On the other hand, in student-centered approaches, the role of the teacher and students should be compatible with the contemporary learning theories. In the contemporary learning process, the student constructs new information while examining previous knowledge in order to determine what is known; during this process the student constructs his/her learning with experimentation, application, research and observation order (Orhan, 2004).
Consequently, it is important for pre-service teachers and in-service teachers to be informed contemporary learning methods and techniques (group work and demonstrative experiments) in order to investigate how these methods make learning easier and to obtain skills in how to apply these methods (Ekici, 1996; Saka and Akdeniz, 2001). In science education, the application of these methods and techniques are very broad. The fundamental purpose of science education is to provide ways for students to learn concepts meaningfully. One of the obstacles behind meaningful and permanent learning is misconceptions. When recent studies of science education were analyzed, the results show that in many subjects of science education students have misconceptions (Pfundt and Duit, 2000; Taber, 2002). One of the reasons for these misconceptions is teachers existing misconceptions about the subject (Yip, 1998; Sanders, 1993). For that reason, the determination of in-service and pre-service teachers’ misconceptions and educating them with correct information is supposed to be guaranteed (Köse, 2004). In addition to the misconceptions, it is important to find approaches to eliminate these misconceptions (Özmen and Demircioğlu, 2003). One of the approaches developed for this purpose is the conceptual change approach.
In this study, group work and demonstrative experiments based on the conceptual change approach were used in science education pre-service teachers to investigate the elimination of misconceptions in photosynthesis and respiration in plants and compared to traditional approaches.
When the results of this study were analyzed, the experimental group and control group’s pre-test academic achievement scores were close to each other, and there was no significant difference between them (p < 0.01). On the other hand, academic achievement post-test results of experimental and control group reveal that there is a significant difference. Therefore, the academic achievement of the experimental group students who took the course with the conceptual change approach achieved higher post-test results than control group students who took the course with the traditional approach. Group work and demonstrative experiments based on the conceptual change approach seem to be very effective in eliminating the experimental groups’ misconceptions in photosynthesis and respiration in plants in the science laboratory application course. The underlying reason is that the strategies applied in the conceptual change approach explain misconceptions between scientific information and existing information. These misconceptions are highlighted exactly and clearly. Moreover, in this approach, those concepts were presented to make them more concrete. This study reveals compatible results with previous studies like Sungur (2000), Mikkilä-Erdmann (2001), Köse et al., (2006), Köse and Uşak (2006), Başer and Geban, (2007). Waheed and Lucas (1992) and Johnstone and Mahmoud (1980) found that photosynthesis and respiration in plants are the most confusing subjects fot the students.
The research of Griffard and Wandersee (2001) and Seymour and Longden (1991) reveal that pre-service teachers have misconceptions of the difference of plant and animal respiration. They even have wrong information, like plants do not respire. This misconception is due to the wrong information that they have. They are educated mostly on animal and human respiration. As a consequence of our study, group work and demonstrative experiments based on the conceptual change approach is more effective than traditional approaches in the elimination of misconceptions in photosynthesis and respiration in plants topic in science education pre-service teachers.
Köse et al., (2006) concluded that conceptual change texts based on the conceptual change approach reveals more satisfactory results than traditional approaches on the topic of photosynthesis and respiration in plants. The results of this study are consistent with the study of Köse et al., (2006) in that applications based on conceptual change are more effective than the traditional educational approaches.
In the study that was conducted by Gedik et al., (2002) students used the demonstration method, based on the conceptual change approach, hinted at possible misconceptions and those misconceptions was detected with questions and demonstrations. Demonstrations and discussions make it possible for students to notice scientific facts and to connect them to their previous knowledge. Students discover scientific facts while observing and discussing. Therefore, it was determined that the demonstration method, which is based on the conceptual change approach, causes decreases in the misconceptions of students and prevents them altogether. The results of our study are also consistent with the study of Gedik et al., (2002) in that demonstrative experiments based on the conceptual change approach are used, and the group in which the demonstration is applied is more successful and their misconceptions are reduced.
Hynd et al., (1994) in their studies of ninth and tenth class primary school students divided the class into groups of eight students. First, previous knowledge about the subject was found. Then, they applied demonstration and discussion strategy based on the conceptual change approach to student groups. Researchers evaluated a test to find out the conceptual change of participant students either before or after the application. It was observed that intuitive ideas based on prior information about the subjects had been transformed into scientific information. Our studies resemble this because demonstrations based on conceptual change were used, prior knowledge of students were measured before the application and the success of the students increased after the application.
Stavy et al., (1987) conducted a questionnaire to find out basic misconceptions about photosynthesis and respiration among eighth and ninth pimary students. This questionnaire contained open-end questions. They determined that the students had some misconceptions about the subjects. Strategies based on the conceptual change approach applied to the student group and the misconceptions were corrected. The results of this study are also consistent with the study of Stavy et al.(1987) ; making use of the group work and demonstrative experiments based on the conceptual change approach fixed the misconceptions of pre-service teachers on the concept of photosynthesis and respiration in plants.
Yenilmez and Tekkaya (2006) investigated the effect of conceptual change text and internet media to better understand the subject of photosynthesis and respiration for students. In their studies (2006), they observed that experimental group, using the conceptual change approach, was more successful than the control group in understanding photosynthesis and respiration concepts. It was also observed that the academic success of students in the experimental group on the concept of photosynthesis and respiration in plants was higher than the control group with whom the traditional educational approach was used.
The result of this study represents that traditional approaches seem to be ineffective in the elimination of misconception in pre-service and in-service teachers. Therefore, alternative learning methods need to be used to overcome misconceptions.
