Do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge?

Dealing with representations is a crucial skill for students and such representational competence is essential for learning science. This study analysed the relationship between representational competence and content knowledge, student perceptions of teaching practices concerning the use of diff...

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Main Authors: Nitz, Sandra, Ainsworth, Shaaron E., Nerdel, Claudia, Prechtl, Helmut
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/27826/
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author Nitz, Sandra
Ainsworth, Shaaron E.
Nerdel, Claudia
Prechtl, Helmut
author_facet Nitz, Sandra
Ainsworth, Shaaron E.
Nerdel, Claudia
Prechtl, Helmut
author_sort Nitz, Sandra
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Dealing with representations is a crucial skill for students and such representational competence is essential for learning science. This study analysed the relationship between representational competence and content knowledge, student perceptions of teaching practices concerning the use of different representations, and their impact on students’ outcome over a teaching unit. Participants were 931 students in 51 secondary school classes. Representational competence and content knowledge were interactively related. Representational aspects were only moderately included in teaching and students did not develop rich representational competence although content knowledge increased significantly. Multilevel regression showed that student perceptions of interpreting and constructing visual-graphical representations and active social construction of knowledge predicted students’ outcome at class level, whereas the individually perceived amount of terms and use of symbolic representations influenced the students’ achievement at individual level. Methodological and practical implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the development of representational competence in classrooms.
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spelling nottingham-278262020-05-04T20:14:23Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/27826/ Do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge? Nitz, Sandra Ainsworth, Shaaron E. Nerdel, Claudia Prechtl, Helmut Dealing with representations is a crucial skill for students and such representational competence is essential for learning science. This study analysed the relationship between representational competence and content knowledge, student perceptions of teaching practices concerning the use of different representations, and their impact on students’ outcome over a teaching unit. Participants were 931 students in 51 secondary school classes. Representational competence and content knowledge were interactively related. Representational aspects were only moderately included in teaching and students did not develop rich representational competence although content knowledge increased significantly. Multilevel regression showed that student perceptions of interpreting and constructing visual-graphical representations and active social construction of knowledge predicted students’ outcome at class level, whereas the individually perceived amount of terms and use of symbolic representations influenced the students’ achievement at individual level. Methodological and practical implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the development of representational competence in classrooms. Elsevier 2014-06 Article PeerReviewed Nitz, Sandra, Ainsworth, Shaaron E., Nerdel, Claudia and Prechtl, Helmut (2014) Do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge? Learning and Instruction, 31 . pp. 13-22. ISSN 0959-4752 Learning biology science education drawing representation http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959475213000935 doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2013.12.003 doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2013.12.003
spellingShingle Learning
biology
science education
drawing
representation
Nitz, Sandra
Ainsworth, Shaaron E.
Nerdel, Claudia
Prechtl, Helmut
Do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge?
title Do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge?
title_full Do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge?
title_fullStr Do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge?
title_full_unstemmed Do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge?
title_short Do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge?
title_sort do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge?
topic Learning
biology
science education
drawing
representation
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/27826/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/27826/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/27826/