The Influence Of Scientific Reasoning On The Concept Change And Reasoning Ability Of Senior High School Students In Dual Situational Learning Model

Dual situated learning model(DSLM) both emphasized the essential nature of the concept and the students’ preconception. To design conflict situations that can lead to students’ cognitive conflicts, challenging events and real-life situations for students’ misconceptions. It is essential to incorporate scientific reasoning skills in training so as to promote their conceptual changes and enhance students’scientific reasoning abilities. In the research, the concept of "Chromosome and Hereditary" in the biological book was adopted as an example, which was published by Zhejiang Science and Technology Press. The "DSLM teaching" and "traditional teaching" were selected to explore the effects of different teaching methods on students’conceptual change, scientific reasoning abilities, and the relationship between them.The subjects were sophomore students. The research methods were literature research, interview and quasi-experimental study. The research tools were "chromosome and genetic" achievement test, "chromosome and genetic" reasoning test, scientific reasoning test and interview outline. Both the experimental group and the control group accepted pre-test and post-test. The independent samples and paired sample t-test were used to analyze the statistical significance of the difference, and the correlations of two kinds of tests in the pre-test and post-test were analyzed. The interviews conducted before and after teaching were analyzed to examine the difference of conceptual change and reasoning in the experimental group.The results of the study are as follows:(1)After two forms of teaching, the two groups of students both have significantly improved in concept learning, but the experimental group were significantly better than the control group.(2)The Experimental group and the control group both have significantly improved in the reasoning test of "chromosome and genetic", but the experimental group’s average score was higher than that of the control group’s in the post-test; There was no significant difference between the experimental group and control group in the post-test of "chromosome and genetic" reasoning test, but the experimental group’s post-test scores were significantly higher than pre-test scores. This suggested that reasoning and DSLM teaching can promote the understanding of concept and enhance students’scientific reasoning abilities.(3)The analysis result of the interview showed that there was a slight increase of the number of concepts. The score of correct concepts was higher in the post-interview than that in the pre-interview. Furthermore, students made some progress or maintained half right in the amount of conceptual change. With respect to the level of scientific reasoning, the experimental group demonstrated higher level of scientific reasoning skills such as justification (J) and explanation (EX).(4) There was no significant correlation between the genetic concepts test and scientific reasoning test both in the experimental group and the control group at the pre-test. But at the post-test, there was significant correlation between the two tests in the experimental group, when the control group demonstrated a slight correlation. This suggested that the learning of concept and performance scientific reasoning abilities were relevant, it means that improving the scientific reasoning ability could promote the understanding of concepts.According to these findings, the researcher proposed that teachers should carry out classroom teaching on the basis of understanding the students’misconceptions related to knowledge of biology, and combined with the training of scientific reasoning skills in the process of classroom teaching, in order to develop students’ scientific reasoning ability and promote their understandings and application of the concepts.