A carefully constructed set of 16 graphical tasks related to key biochemistry concepts was designed and administered to a group of 82 students in their final year of B.Sc. study.
The test mean score of 48,3% ( 12,1) was low and characterised by gender and ethnic differences. There was a moderate linear relationship between biochemistry grades obtained by the students over two years of study and their graphical literacy (r = 0,433). The majority of the students exhibited slope/height confusion and only seven students (8,5%) were able to answer the two items corresponding to Kimura‘s Level F, the most complex and difficult level of graphical literacy.
Eye tracking data gave valuable insights into different strategies used by students while interpreting graphs and is a valuable tool for assessing graphical literacy.
These findings confirmed other studies where researchers have found a widespread lack of graph comprehension among biological science students. / Institute of Science and Technology Education / M. Sc. (Science Education)
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:umkn-dsp01.int.unisa.ac.za:10500/4913 |
Date | 11 1900 |
Creators | Van Tonder, André |
Contributors | Atagana, H. I. |
Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
Language | English |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Dissertation |
Format | 1 online resource (viii, 134 leaves) |
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