6533b7d7fe1ef96bd1268354

RESEARCH PRODUCT

What Do Secondary Students Really Learn during Investigations with Living Animals? Parameters for Effective Learning with Social Insects

Daniel DreesmannRebecca Sammet

subject

TemnothoraxbiologyKnowledge levelEcology (disciplines)05 social sciences050301 educationLearning achievementFactual knowledgePositive correlationbiology.organism_classificationKnowledge acquisitionEducationQualitative analysisMathematics education0501 psychology and cognitive sciences050102 behavioral science & comparative psychologyGeneral Agricultural and Biological Sciences0503 education

description

ABSTRACTExemplary for social insects, Temnothorax ants allow for various hands-on investigations in biology classes. The aim of this study was to provide a quantitative and qualitative analysis of secondary school students’ learning achievement after teaching units with ants lasting between one and six weeks. The questionnaires included transfer and factual knowledge tasks divided into eight fields of knowledge. Students (N  =  459) from 22 classes participated in the study and received different treatments: The experimental group (n  =  366) started their investigations by initial observation using stereo microscopes, while the control group (n  =  93) conducted ant research without this introductory teaching unit. We investigated the influence of class level, gender and time period of participation on knowledge acquisition. Independent of class level, factual learning achievement was observed for all fields of knowledge except ecology. We did not find a positive correlation between time period of partic...

https://doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2016.1150873