Remediating misconception on climate change among secondary school students in Malaysia

Abstract

Existing studies report on secondary school students’ misconceptions related to climate change; they also report on the methods of teaching as reinforcing misconceptions. This quasi-experimental study was designed to test the null hypothesis that a curriculum based on constructivist principles does not lead to greater understanding and fewer misconceptions on acid rain, global warming, greenhouse effect, and ozone layer depletion than the traditional Malaysian curriculum. For this purpose, two classes from two different schools were randomly assigned to experimental (N = 35) and control condition (N = 38). Following the intervention, an ANCOVA with pre-test as the covariate showed statistically significant differences in understanding for all four topics; additional interviews with randomly selected students from experimental and control group further underscore the findings. Implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• remediating misconception
• climate change
• secondary school
• biology curriculum

Acknowledgments

The study reported in this manuscript was supported by the Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Short Term Grant number 304/PGURU/6311078.