Do student perceptions of teaching predict the development of representational competence and biological knowledge?

Nitz, Sandra; Ainsworth, Shaaron E.; Nerdel, Claudia; Prechtl, Helmut

Abstract

Dealing with representations is a crucial skill for students and such representational competence is essential for learning science. This study analysed the relationship between representational competence and content knowledge, student perceptions of teaching practices concerning the use of different representations, and their impact on students’ outcome over a teaching unit. Participants were 931 students in 51 secondary school classes. Representational competence and content knowledge were interactively related. Representational aspects were only moderately included in teaching and students did not develop rich representational competence although content knowledge increased significantly. Multilevel regression showed that student perceptions of interpreting and constructing visual-graphical representations and active social construction of knowledge predicted students’ outcome at class level, whereas the individually perceived amount of terms and use of symbolic representations influenced the students’ achievement at individual level. Methodological and practical implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the development of representational competence in classrooms.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2014
• Deposit Date: Jan 21, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 21, 2015
• Journal: Learning and Instruction
• Print ISSN: 0959-4752
• Electronic ISSN: 0959-4752
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 31
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2013.12.003
• Keywords: Learning, biology, science education, drawing, representation
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/995703
• Publisher URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959475213000935
• Additional Information: NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Learning and Instruction. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Learning and Instruction, 31 (June 2014), doi: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2013.12.003