Student understanding of science process skills in the implementation of primary science curriculum based on classroom assessment
To succeed in an increasingly technological and advanced world, children must be scientifically literate. Therefore, the science curriculum is designed to provide students with science knowledge so that they can become scientifically literate individuals. Scientific Process Skills (SPS) are requi...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/105103/1/FPP%202022%2034%20IR.pdf |
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| Summary: | To succeed in an increasingly technological and advanced world, children must be
scientifically literate. Therefore, the science curriculum is designed to provide students
with science knowledge so that they can become scientifically literate individuals.
Scientific Process Skills (SPS) are required to find answers to problems or systematically
make decisions. The SPS can be categorized into basic SPS and integrated SPS (Aydodu
et al., 2012; Derilo, 2019; Joseph et al., 2017; Kızılaslan, 2019). Nevertheless, it has
been found that the SPS achievement of primary school students remains unsatisfactory.
Some of the science teachers show no willingness to teach SPS in class and some of
them failed to include all twelve SPS during science lessons.
This study focuses on the understanding of students’ SPS via the implementation of a
science curriculum in elementary school based on classroom assessment. Data were
gathered from six teachers and twelve fifth-grade students selected purposively. The
triangulation for a qualitative method is employed and analysed using NVIVO 12 Plus
software. Key thematic findings show how students developed their understanding of
six basic SPS, six integrated SPS, and basic SPS from prior knowledge. Other themes
related are students’ favourite SPS topic that makes students show more interest in
developing full comprehension of SPS learning. The study was able to gain some
perceptions of the teachers about the students' achievement level in SPS, gathered from
teacher’s professional judgment during the classroom assessment. Some issues such as
the method, criteria, teaching approach, and teachers' collaboration in assessing students
SPS are explained and elaborated accordingly. All the identified themes were validated
using Cohen's Kappa calculation. It was found that pupils’ understanding shows a moderate level for basic SPS and low
level for integrated SPS. Some of the pupils having little misconception for certain skills
such as making inference, while most of them having difficulties to understand and
interpreted the integrated SPS. The dominant skill practised by pupils is observation
skill, based on the most favourite, easiest and frequency of using SPS. These findings
are supported by teachers view that find out the performance of some pupils is at
moderate level for basic and integrated SPS. While the performance of the rest is still
low and need guidance from teachers according to their cognitive learning level in
science.
Besides that, the teacher’s view for the pupil’s SPS performance are balance considering
the understanding of lower and higher achievement in science. The teachers agreed that
both category of pupils has their strength and interest in mastering the SPS. Therefore,
it is essential for teacher to use the suitable approach to trigger the pupils’ interest and
make the lesson meaningful. The findings also suggest that students need to be engaged
in more hands-on activities with greater relevance to SPS. However, the research
findings of the pupil’s SPS understanding that infused in the classroom assessment has
provide a lot of information to the pupil’s insight learning and for the teachers to modify
their instructions. Teachers will be better positioned to modify their instructional
strategies and content emphasis to help optimise pupil learning as they become more
aware of their pupils' desires, needs, strengths, and weaknesses. When the planning of
the pupil’s learning is well strategized, it will give a big impact to the successful
implementation of primary science curriculum. |
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