Development of procedural understanding among South African science students at pre-tertiary education level

Abstract

This paper reports some of the results of a study into the development of procedural understanding for preuniversity students in South Africa. A number of students (n=237) in a science foundation year were given a preand post-test on their views of the quality of empirical data. This paper presents the analysis of one representative question about the use of control groups in biological experiments. Between, the pre- and post-test students had done practical work involving the use of control groups. Results show that students’ procedural understanding improves especially with respect to recognition that the control group is part of the experiment. However, students approach the data from the control group in a variety of ways. This leads us to the conclusion that teaching should aim to ensure that students not only learn to recognize the purpose of an experiment, but should also be explicitly taught what a control group is, and how the results for the control group should be evaluated; thereby learning to see an experiment and the evaluation of the results as one entity.

Keywords:

• Procedural understanding
• South African
• Science students