Hands-on Activities and Their Influence on Students鈥?Interest
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- 作者：Nina Holstermann ; Dietmar Grube and Susanne B枚geholz
- 关键词：Classify ; Dissection ; Experiment ; Hands ; on activity ; Interest ; Microscope ; Quality of experience
- 刊名：Research in Science Education
- 出版时间：November 2010
- 出版年：2010
- 期刊代码：24_0157244X
- 类别：bus
- 卷：40
- 期：5
- 页码：743-757
- 数据来源：sp
摘要
This study investigates the influence of hands-on activities on students’ interest. We researched whether students with experience in specific hands-on activities show higher interest in these activities than students without experience. Furthermore, the relationship between the quality of the hands-on experience and interest in the respective activity was examined. In total, 28 typical hands-on activities of biology education were considered. The activities were divided into the categories experimentation, dissection, work with microscopes, and classification. A total of 141 students from the 11th grade completed questionnaires on interest in the hands-on activities, their experience with each activity, and the quality of the respective experience. Students’ interest in experimenting, working with microscopes, dissecting and classifying tends to benefit from performing hands-on activities. However, findings indicated that the performance of various hands-on activities can influence students’ interest differently. For seven hands-on activities, we identified a positive effect of hands-on experience on interest, while in one case, practical work appeared to have influenced students’ interest negatively. However, for most hands-on activities, no effect of experience on interest was found. The quality of hands-on experiences showed positive correlations with interest in the respective hands-on activities. Therefore, this paper argues in favour of designing biology lessons that allow for experiences with hands-on activities that also interest students. Our findings underline the necessity of investigating the effects of various hands-on activities in a differentiated manner.