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ABSTRACT
This study examined the reflection interview as a tool for assessing and facilitating the use of ‘systems language’ amongst 11th grade students who have recently completed their first year of high school biology. Eighty-three students composed two concept maps in the 10th grade—one at the beginning of the school year and one at its end. The first part of the interview is dedicated to guiding the students through comparing their two concept maps and by means of both explicit and non-explicit teaching. Our study showed that the explicit guidance in comparing the two concept maps was more effective than the non-explicit, eliciting a variety of different, more specific, types of interactions and patterns (e.g. ‘hierarchy’, ‘dynamism’, ‘homeostasis’) in the students’ descriptions of the human body system. The reflection interview as a knowledge integration activity was found to be an effective tool for assessing the subjects’ conceptual models of ‘system complexity’, and for identifying those aspects of a system that are most commonly misunderstood.
Notes on contributors
Tripto is a Ph.D. graduate of the Science Education Department at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and a Biology science teacher in high school.
Orit Ben-Zvi Assaraf is a senior lecturer in the Science Education Department at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Her work in science education also focuses on cognitive-based research into system thinking in the field of Biology, Ecology and Earth sciences.
Zohar Snapir is a postdoc in the Science Education Department at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.
Miriam Amit is an associate professor in the Department of Social Work at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.