Evaluation and Comparison of Newly Designed IBSE Oriented MBL Activities and of Work with MBL Systems by Slovak and Czech Students
Abstrakt
In the framework of EU project COMBLAB, research based teaching materials with revised didactic sequence were developed. The emphasis was put on context of each activity and inquiry-based elements so that students do not just work out the experiment after cook-book instructions.
There were many questions that arouse before and during the project: for example, Are students motivated for laboratory work with MBL or are they saturated by computer technology?, Is the work with MBL complicated for students?, How do students perceive each activity - are they motivated to perform particular activity?, What are the variables that influence students' motivation to work out the experiment?, and many others. To answer satisfactory these questions two instruments for evaluation of prepared materials were used: (i) questionnaire for motivation orientation and (i) questionnaire for activity evaluation.
The results of the evaluation showed that the activities were evaluated by students very positively, more positively by Slovak students than by Czech students. The evaluation of the activities by students showed they can be considered as interesting and motivating, with clear instruction.
Although all the activities gained the positive evaluation, some of them were evaluated more positively, especially those which are simple, with clear instruction, with well treated motivational part and oriented to human body and with well achievable and reproducible results. Also set-up and work with MBL system were rated positively by the participating students as majority of them considered them to be simple.
Also, majority of students support more frequent use of MBL systems in secondary school education. In this evaluation, the students preferred simple activities, the minor problems were identified in the case of activities based on titration, where the set-up and work with MBL is more complicated by the nature of the measurement and this aspect must be taken into account during preparation and implementation of the activity.
Surprisingly, relatively complicated spectroscopic activities were, in general, evaluated more positively than activities based on titration and although there were more issues in set-up and measurement in comparison to the most successful activities, it seems that these activities can be implemented easier than we originally expected and they are not as demanding to teacher's attention. Despite very positive evaluation of the activities as well as of set-up and work with MBL systems, the course with MBL can be still considered more demanding for teachers than "regular" courses held without the MBL systems.
The issues and obstacles connected to usage of MBL systems which require teacher's attention and help, which must be provided to students, give still relatively high ration of all the help provided to students (ca more than 50 %). This drawback in implementation should be compensated by appropriate teacher's preparation before MBL course and also rationalize existence of appropriate courses for pre-service teachers in the framework of their university curriculum as well as for in-service teachers in the framework of their professional development.