The effects of the first-year field test BSCS middle school science program on student understanding of the nature of science
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| Publicado en: | ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (1991) |
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
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| Acceso en línea: | Citation/Abstract Full Text - PDF |
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| Resumen: | The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of the new BSCS middle school science program, an innovative program designed to facilitate the scientific literacy of students, on student understanding of the nature of science. The participants in the study were sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students who attended two of three middle schools in a suburban school district located near a large metropolitan area in the Midwest. The student population of one of these middle schools, which constituted the experimental group, used the BSCS middle school science program. The student population of the other middle school, which constituted the control group, used a more traditional middle school science curriculum represented by Silver Burdett (1985) at the sixth grade level and by Merrill (1985) and Heath (1985) at the seventh and eighth grade level. All students were administered a pretest and posttest, using the Modified Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale (MNSKS), which measured their understanding of the creative, developmental, testable, and unified nature of science. A repeated measures MANOVA, used to determine the statistical difference between the pretest and posttest scores of students on the MNSKS, indicated there was an overall difference in understanding for students who experienced both science programs. Paired t-test were performed as follow-up analyses to determine which of the posttest scores for the four subscales changed significantly for both groups. The results of these analyses indicated that the understanding of students who experienced the BSCS science program decreased significantly in regard to the developmental and testable nature of science and that the understanding of students who experienced the control group science program decreased significantly in regard to the creative nature of science. Analyses of covariance were used to determine the relative effects of the BSCS science program and the control group science program on student understanding of the creative, developmental, testable, and unified nature of science. The findings of these statistical analyses indicated that students in the control group possessed a significantly better understanding of the testable nature of science than did students who used the BSCS science program. Data were collected during classroom observations of, and interviews with a sixth, seventh, and eighth grade teacher at each school, interviews with the principal at each school, the BSCS research assistant, and the District science supervisor, and a review of curricular materials. These data were analyzed to describe and compare the experimental and control group science programs as they were used by teachers. Implications of the results relate to the constructivist view of learning, the development of curricula designed to facilitate scientific literacy, and future research endeavors. |
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| ISBN: | 9798641331164 |
| Fuente: | ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global |