Students’ performance in the scientific skills during secondary education

Gabriel Enrique Ayuso Fernández; Luisa López-Banet; Alicia Ruiz-Vidal

doi:10.29333/ejmste/12444

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Gabriel Enrique Ayuso Fernández ¹ ^* , Luisa López-Banet ¹ , Alicia Ruiz-Vidal ¹

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¹ Department of Didactics of Experimental Sciences, University of Murcia, Murcia, SPAIN^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

One of the goals of secondary science education is to help students develop skills related to scientific inquiry. However, the results of previous studies have shown that students have difficulties in identifying problems, formulating hypotheses, drawing conclusions, and designing experiments. The main objective of this contribution is to indicate the situation in the southeast of Spain in this regard, comparing progress throughout secondary education. Four instruments were designed based on specific problematic situations in biology that were solved by 260 students from three different educational levels (12, 14, and 16 years old). The results show that high school students learn very little in terms of the development of the aforementioned skills and have difficulty understanding their meaning in the science texts used in the classroom. In this paper, some of the reasons that could explain this situation are analyzed and suggestions are made as to how the teaching of the desired skills could be improved.

Keywords

experimental design
hypotheses
problem identification
scientific skills
secondary school

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, Volume 18, Issue 10, October 2022, Article No: em2165

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12444

Publication date: 09 Sep 2022

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How to cite this article

APA

Ayuso Fernández, G. E., López-Banet, L., & Ruiz-Vidal, A. (2022). Students’ performance in the scientific skills during secondary education. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 18(10), em2165. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12444

Vancouver

Ayuso Fernández GE, López-Banet L, Ruiz-Vidal A. Students’ performance in the scientific skills during secondary education. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2022;18(10):em2165. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12444

AMA

Ayuso Fernández GE, López-Banet L, Ruiz-Vidal A. Students’ performance in the scientific skills during secondary education. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2022;18(10), em2165. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12444

Chicago

Ayuso Fernández, Gabriel Enrique, Luisa López-Banet, and Alicia Ruiz-Vidal. "Students’ performance in the scientific skills during secondary education". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 2022 18 no. 10 (2022): em2165. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12444

Harvard

Ayuso Fernández, G. E., López-Banet, L., and Ruiz-Vidal, A. (2022). Students’ performance in the scientific skills during secondary education. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 18(10), em2165. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12444

MLA

Ayuso Fernández, Gabriel Enrique et al. "Students’ performance in the scientific skills during secondary education". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, vol. 18, no. 10, 2022, em2165. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/12444