Comparing the Structure of Secondary School Students' Perception of the Meaning of 'Experiment' in Science and Biology

Abstract

Perception of the experiment is one of the most important factors of students' understanding of scientific inquiry and the nature of science. This study examined the perception of middle and high school students of the meaning of 'experiment' in the biological sciences. Semantic network analysis (SNA) was especially used to visualize students' perception structure in this study. One hundred and ninety middle school students and 200 high school students participated in this study. Students responded to two questions on the meaning of 'experiment' in science and biology. This study constructed four semantic networks based on the collected response. As a result, middle school students about the 'experiment' in science are 'we', 'direct', 'principle' of such words was aware of the experiments from the center to the active side. The high school students' 'theory', 'true', 'information' were recognized as an experiment that explores the process of creating a knowledge center including the word. In addition, middle school students relative to 'experiment' of the creature around the 'dissection', 'body', high school students were recognized as 'life', 'observation' observation activities dealing with the living organisms and recognized as a core. The results of this study will be used as important evidence in the future to map out an experiment in biological science curriculum.