Biology Inquiry Skills of Preservice Biology Teachers

Author: Yeong-Jing Cheng, Hsueh-Mei Chou(Department of Biology, National Taiwan Normal University)

Abstract：

In this study, the Biology Inquiry Skills Inventory (BISI) was developed and validated. The construction of the items was based upon an identified list of five major behavioral components of the Delimitation of Biological Inquiry Skills. The BISI was pilot-tried, revised, and validated by examining the proficiency of biological inquiry skills as possessed by the prospective sec-ondary biology teachers in preservice teacher education program.
The internal consistency reliability of the BISI scores was 0.73. The coefficient of stability was 0.71. The correlation coefficients between BISI and BSCT, BTCI, UNSI, and SAT scores were 0.42, 0.41, 0.36, and 0.60 respectively. Further analysis of data had provided satisfactory support of the content, concurrent, and construct validity of the BISI.
The mean and the standard deviation of the BISI scores for the entire subjects were 48.41 and 8.08. The results of oneway ANOVA showed that a statistically significant difference was found in BISI scores among the subjects of the four grade levels. Subsequent multiple-range test revealed that the senior subjects scored significantly higher in both BISI and skill component 4 (design experiment) than the subjects of the other three grade levels (p<0.05). It was also found that the seniors scored significantly higher in skill component 1 (process and in-terpret data) than the sophomores (p<0.05). No statistically significant differences in the scores of the other three skill components among the subjects of the four grade levels. Further data analysis indicated that the subjects with higher academic achievement scored significant better than those with lower achievement.

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