An Evaluation of Instruction in Junior High School Biology -from the Survey Co-Sponsored by the National Science Council and the Ministry of Education 1985-

Author: Jong-Hsiang Yang

Abstract：

A planned achievement test for junior high school biology (Cronbach's α = 0.84} was applied to evaluate the instruction of junior high school biology in Taiwan under the co-sponsorship of the National Science Council and the Ministry of Education. Randomly collected samples (n = 972) from randomly assigned 17,200 testees from 86 junior high schools were analyzed. The results of item analysis revealed the following weaknesses in our biology instruction: (1) it only emphasized memorization of the products (results), and neglected their understanding of the processes of the experiments; (2) it only paid attention to the rote learning of specific knowledge, and neglected the intergration or synthesis of knowledge learned; (3) it was only concerned about technique of calculation, and neglected the understanding of related concepts or principles, etc.
In the final part of the study, the subject group on the northern part of Taiwan (n = 320) were compared with the experimental classes of instructional models (n = 392) in the same school districts. Analysis of covariate and Duncan's new multiple range test indicated that the experimental group dominated significantly (p < 0.01) over the sample group on all measured dependent variables: the achievement of knowledge gain, inductive thinking and divergent thinking skills.

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