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MSc., Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / As science teachers, one of our objectives is to find new and effective teaching strategies to represent scientific concepts in a simplified and uncomplicated way to our learners. This study seeks to examine the merits of using visualisation as a means of representing science in a less complex way for learners as they come to terms with some of the conceptual difficulties that they experience. One of the challenges this study aims to highlight is the multilingual environment that physical sciences educators must teach within where learners experience conceptual difficulties as well as learning difficulties as a result of language. This study is set against the backdrop of a typical South African township school where learners learn science in a second language. A sample of 31 learners and their science teacher participated in the research. The use of a visual representation in the form of a series of pictures representing various scenarios of objects colliding was used by the teacher to consolidate the learner’s existing knowledge of the concept of conservation of linear momentum. The results obtained from the questionnaires and interviews indicate that the majority of the learners could have benefitted from the pictures. The pictures served as a means of remediating some of the conceptual difficulties that they had experienced in relation to the vector nature of the motion of the colliding objects, in particular. The study could not conclusively ascertain whether the use of visual representation can specifically help second language learners in overcoming their learning difficulties as a result of the language of instruction. Despite this outcome, the results of the study did indicate that the learners had benefitted from the visual representations. Some of the learners had expressed that the pictures had visually brought to life the practical scenarios that they would have otherwise experienced only through the verbal and written mode of instruction. The study recommends that visualisation in science education can play a significant role in helping learners with conceptual difficulties not just as a result of the language of instruction but also as a result of the general complexities of science that are abstract to even first language learners.

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This study was designed to determine the relative effectiveness of teaching a unit on wave-motion and sound at the grade nine and ten levels, using two different methods of instruction. One hundred twenty students enrolled in the grade nine and ten General Science courses at the Balmoral Junior Secondary School in School District No. 44 (North Vancouver), took part in the investigation. The students were grouped into three levels of scholastic aptitude within each grade, and also, into two methods sections. Two questions were investigated in this study. First, do significant differences exist between the mean scores on the final test of the various grade and methods groups? Secondly, for which of these groups is the unit suitable? In order to answer the first question, the final scores were studied by an analysis of covariance with scholastic aptitude, knowledge of General Science, and prior knowledge of the material in the unit being the variables controlled. The second question was investigated by first adjusting the final scores of all the subjects for differences between them on the three factors assumed to influence their performance in this study. The performance of each group was then compared with the criterion that 75 per cent of the students in a group should make a mark of 50 per cent or better on the final test in order for the unit to be judged suitable for that group. All the differences between the means of the two grade groups, and the three levels of scholastic aptitude within these two grades, were found to be non-significant at the one per cent level of significance. On the other hand, the differences between the means of the methods groups, demonstration-experiment and student-experiment, were found to be significant at the one per cent level. Of the two methods groups, the highest adjusted mean score was obtained by the demonstration-experiment group. All the groups satisfied the requirement of suitability that 75 per cent should obtain a mark of 50 per cent or better on the final test. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

This thesis is addressed to a problem in classroom practice identified as formative evaluation, that is, the development of a method of utilizing Piaget's theory of intellectual development to evaluate the intellectual performance of students contending with the formal concepts and methods of inquiry presented in a first year physics course with a view to improving instruction in the course. The method of studying the problem required a good understanding and analysis of the relevant aspects of Piaget's theory so that it could be reformulated in such a way as to be unable in identifying formal behaviour of individuals' answers to specially selected examination items. This resulted in the formulation of a methodology in the form of an inventory of descriptors, and a method of analysis for identifying behaviour at the final stage of Piaget's developmental sequence, namely the formal operations stage. Method of Study The inventory of descriptors was used to identify formal operational behaviour of students performance on selected Piaget tasks, providing information concerning their maximum potential level of intellectual development. It was then used to identify physics examination items which required formal operations for their solution and the formal operational behaviour displayed by students in responding to the selected items thereby providing information concerning the actual level of intellectual performance displayed by students in classroom situations. A comparison of identified intellectual behaviours provided information concerning the actual level of intellectual performance displayed by students in classroom situations. A comparison of identified intellectual behaviours provided information concerning the usefulness of such an instrument in education. Results of the Study It was concluded that the inventory of descriptors adequately described and identified intellectual behaviour at the formal operations level, both in student performance on the Piaget tasks, and in student performance on selected items from the physics examination paper. The inventory of descriptors proved to be of potential value to formative evaluation in the classroom situation. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

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