The effect of ICT teaching activities in science lessons on students’ understanding of science ideas

s and titles screened N=557 Systematic map Studies included N=43 papers containing 37 studies In-depth review Studies included N=9 Duplicate references excluded N=71 Papers excluded N=410 Potential includes N=147 Papers not obtained N=4 Full document screened N=143 Criteria 1 N = 5 2 N = 32 3 N = 17 4 N = 19 5 N = 24 6 N = 2 7 N = 1 Papers excluded N=100 In-depth criteria 1 N = 18 2 N = 6 3 N = 3 4 N = 1 In map but excluded from in-depth review N=28 Chapter 3 Identifying and describing studies: results 13 ICT in science teaching 14 3.2 Characteristics of the included studies (systematic map) As can be seen in Table 3.1, studies included in the map were carried out in ten countries. While the review focused on studies published in English, nearly half (46%) of them were carried out in countries where English is not the national/first/ mother language. The remaining 20 studies (54%) were from the USA, the UK and Australia. As was found in previous Science reviews, the highest proportion of studies was from the USA: 32% in Bennett et al. (2003) and 39% in Bennett et al. (2004). The relatively high proportion of studies from Taiwan is in part due to the continuing work of one researcher who has published four studies (seven papers) on various pedagogical aspects of the ICT he has been developing (Chang, 2000, 2001a, 2003, 2004 as the main papers in this review). One of the inclusion/exclusion criteria at the screening stage was that the studies should be evaluations; 27 (73%) in this review were found to be researcher-manipulated and ten (27%) naturally occurring evaluations. Within the researchermanipulated group, eight (30%) were randomised controlled trials and 19 (70%) controlled trials. This balance reflects the limited opportunities within the educational setting for researcher(s) to have full control and to randomise which students or classes can be allocated to which treatments. In some cases, randomisation was limited to allocation of classes. However, where this occurred with less than four classes for each treatment the study was not classified as randomised for this review. This follows the recommendation of Ukoumunne et al. (1999) as to what constitutes a randomised trial or study when allocation is by class. Table 3.2 shows that the biggest proportion of studies was Biology-based, with nearly as many in Physics. ICT seems to be little used, or little reported, in Chemistry teaching. This imbalance is consistent with an earlier EPPI-Centre systematic science review (Bennett et al., 2004) into the use of small-group discussions where only 4% of the studies involved Chemistry teaching and learning. On the other hand, in a systematic review focused on context-based and Science-Technology-Society approaches to teaching science, chemistry-based studies formed 23% of the sample (Bennett et al., 2003). The close link between ICT and physics for the physics researchers, teachers and students can easily be appreciated. There are a number of reasons for the interest in ICT for biologists: the facility that it provides to avoid using animals for dissection (Akpan and Andre, 2000; Kariuki and Paulson, 2001); the manner in which it can speed up generation time when teaching evolution (Miglino et al., 2004); and the opportunity it gives to teach genetics in a more interactive way (Tsui and Treagust, 2003a). As described above in relation to country, four of the seven earth science studies are those carried out by Chang (2000, 2001a, 2003, 2004) as his series of investigations into different aspects of the use of ICT in teaching students about the effects of typhoons and debris flow. The most striking aspect of the data in Table 3.3 is that few authors give any details of the ability or motivational level of the learners taking part in their studies. As many educational systems are mixed ability, it is likely, unless specified otherwise, that the students would be of mixed ability for their age group or grade class. If this were the case, 87% of the studies reported on would be in this category. Table 3.4 shows that 22 (60%) of the studies gave information on the ways in which students work with ICT, ranging from singly to whole classes. Within the sub-sample of 22 studies the most common practice (64%), was for single working followed by working in pairs (36%). It was unusual for students to work in larger groups. A very high proportion of the studies was focused on measuring students’ gains in scientific knowledge/explanations. Table 3.5 also demonstrates that nearly half of the investigations measured some aspect of students’ learning about scientific approach / method. Twelve studies considered both scientific knowledge / explanations and scientific approach. The cross-tabulations in Table 3.6 show that researchers in all five science subject areas were principally interested in the effect of ICT on scientific knowledge / understanding. The numbers by subject for scientific knowledge / explanations in Table 3.6 are very close to those for subject distribution in Table 3.2. It should be noted that the totals for scientific knowledge and scientific approach do not exactly match those in Table 3.5, 32 and 17 studies respectively, because one study (Dimitrov et al., 2002) involved Biology and Physics. A considerably higher proportion of studies of the use of ICT in Integrated Science (3 out of 4) and Earth Science (6 out of 7) explore effects on understanding of the scientific approach than in Biology (5 out of 14) and Physics (3 out of 11), but the absolute numbers are very small for Integrated Science and for Earth Science, and so no conclusions can be drawn about the difference between the map sample and the in-depth sample for these two science areas. How authors described their ICT activity varied somewhat. Nonetheless the frequency distributions in Table 3.7 show that simulations / virtual Table 3.1 Country in which the study was carried out (mutually exclusive) (N=37) Country of origin Number of studies Percentage USA 15 40 Taiwan 8 22 England/UK 3 8 Israel 3 8 Australia 2 5 Korea 2 5 Greece 1 3 Hong Kong/China 1 3 Italy 1 3 Turkey 1 3 Total 37 100 Chapter 3 Identifying and describing studies: results 15 Subject Number of studies Percentage Integrated science 4 11 Biology 14 38 Chemistry 2 5 Physics 11 30 Earth science 7 19 Total 38* Table 3.2 Distribution by science subject areas (not mutually exclusive) (N=37) *One study (Dimitrov et al., 2002) used a multimedia virtual environment to teach a biological topic and a physical topic. Types of learners Number of studies Percentage Mixed ability 7 20 Lower ability/slow learners 0 Upper ability/gifted 2 5 Disaffected 0 Unspecified 25 67 Other 3 8 Total 37 100 Table 3.3 Types of learners involved (mutually exclusive) (N=37) Ways of working Number of studies Percentage Singly in school 14 38 In pairs in school 8 22 In groups of up to 5 in school 4 11 Whole class together in school 1 3 Unspecified 15 41 Total 42 Table 3.4 How students work with the ICT (not mutually exclusive) (N=37) Aspect of understanding Number of Percentage of science studies Scientific knowledge/ explanations (facts, concepts, laws, theories) 32 86 Scientific approach (evidence, scientific methods, problem-solving) 17 46 Ideas about science (limitations, scientific community, risk, etc.) 1 3 Applications of science 1 3 Other 1 3 Total 52 Table 3.5 Aspects of science understanding investigated (not mutually exclusive) (N=37) Scientific Scientific Ideas Applications Other knowledge/ approach about of science explanations science Integrated Science 2 3 0 1 0 Biology 13 5 0 0 1 Chemistry 1 1 0 0 0 Physics 11 3 0 0 0 Earth Science 6 6 1 0 0 Total 33 18 1 1 1 Table 3.6 Relationship between area of science and aspect of science understanding studied (not mutually exclusive) (N=37) Aspect of ICT Number of studies Percentage Modelling 3 8 Simulations/virtual environments 19 51 Data-logging 4 11 Use of databases 4 11 Multimedia 10 27 Internet/WWW 7 19 Online discussion 1 3 Tutorial applications 6 16 Hypertext 2 6 Moving image (animations, video clips) 11 30 Email 2 6 Games/adventures 1 3 Other 7 19 Total 77 Table 3.7 Types of ICT used in the studies (not mutually exclusive) (N=37) Size of study Number of studies Percentage Across several/many schools 4 11 One school, several classes 20 54 One class 4 11 Other 9 24 Total 37 100 Table 3.8 Size of the study (mutually exclusive) (N=37) ICT in science teaching 16