Review of Science Article

Article:


• Preference toward Internet-based Learning Environments: High School Students’ Perspectives for Science Learning

Aim:

• To develop a questionnaire to explore students’ preferences towards constructivist Internet-based science learning environments.

Tool:

• Constructivist Internet-based Learning Environment Survey – Science (CILES-S)

• 8 scales with 5 point Likert mode:

1. Ease of use

2. Relevance

3. Multiple sources

4. Reflective thinking

5. Critical judgment

6. Epistemological awareness

7. Cognitive apprenticeship

8. Student negotiation

Results:

• Used exploratory factor analysis & principle component analysis with varimax rotation to analyze the results.

• Used only items that are greater than 0.5 and less than 0.5 on the relevant factor

• Results had high reliability in assessing the preferences (overall alpha co-efficient was 0.94)

• Highest score for relevance scale – students felt that internet-based LE allowed them to understand the connections between real life situations and scientific knowledge better.

• Other high scores are from “ease of use”, “multiple sources” and “cognitive apprenticeship” which indicated that students expected the LE to be user-friendly, to contain large variety of information sources and is able to provide guidance for advanced learning

• Lowest score came from “critical judgment” which indicated that students might not evaluate the information from the internet before using them.

• Female students indicated higher scores in “relevance” and “cognitive apprenticeship” when compared to male students. This implied that female students have a stronger preference for internet-based science LE and they feel that they can learn more from the online resources available.

Further investigations:

• CILES-S may be re-defined to cater to other subjects such as Mathematics, English, etc to investigate students’ preferences in LE for different learning areas.

• Students’ beliefs influence their preferences and strategies for knowledge construction which will eventually affect the learning outcomes.

• Current CILES-S investigates students’ preferences toward ideal LE, perhaps studies can be conducted to investigate the preferences for actual LE and comparisons can be made to understand the gap between ideal & actual LE so that effective measures can be implemented to improve the actual LE.