Ruth Amir

High school students’ difficulties in understanding osmosis

Preconceptions and misconceptions of 500 secondary students in years 9‐12 regarding osmosis were studied through the use of five different kinds of instruments: prior learning inventory, self‐report knowledge inventory, true/false test, definitions and clinical interviews. Some of the major findings were: (1) The most frequent explanation offered to osmosis is ‘a desire or drive towards equalizing concentrations’. (2) Hardly any student uses the concept ‘water concentration’. (3) Most students fail to realize that in dynamic equilibrium water molecules keep moving. (4) Students have special difficulty in understanding osmotic relations in plants. (5) Many students have difficulty in grasping solute‐solvent and concentration‐quantity relations. (6) Students often perform laboratory experiments without really understanding the underlying principles. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

The relationship between instructional strategies, study practices, and attitudes toward biology

Responses to student questionnaires were used to identify the effect of instructional strategies on study practices and attitudes towards biology. Israeli students were found to have positive attitudes towards biology and biology study. As they grow older their attitude towards biology becomes less positive but their appreciation of cognitive features of biology increases. Both organized and enquiry teaching have positive effects on study habits as well as on attitudes. However, while organized teaching has a stronger effect on study habits, teaching by enquiry has a stronger effect on curiosity and interest.

High school preparation for college biology in Israel

The study reports the results of a questionnaire on the opinions of biology, medical and agricultural students regarding the nature of the contribution of high school biology to their study of biology in the university. It was found that most students value the contribution of high school biology to their learning, understanding and retention of new material. Students who specialized in high school biology and who studied an inquiry-oriented program in high school had definite advantages over the others. High school experiences were found to influence achievement in college biology to the extent to which the university courses were based upon prior knowledge.

When does a factor become a ‘limiting factor’?—a study of students' misconceptions

A study carried out by the authors indicated that a high proportion of students do not understand the ‘limiting factor’ concept. The way in which it is presented in textbooks does not help students to overcome their misconceptions. Strategies which may be more effective in teaching the concept are suggested.

What Do Israeli High School Students Understand about Biodiversity? An Evaluation of the High School Biology Programme, "Nature in a World of Change".

One of the most serious problems facing our planet is the biodiversity crisis. As a solution to this problem, both scientists and educators have emphasised the need for educating people about how to conserve the Earth’s biodiversity. As a small contribution to this effort, we have designed a learning unit about biodiversity, Nature in a world of change, which has recently been implemented with 74 12th-grade Israeli high-school biology students. This unit consists of two components: an introductory module and a collection of three articles adapted from the primary scientific literature. This paper focuses on an in-depth examination with 25 students participating in the programme’s implementation. The evaluation process includes a self-assessment of prior basic ecological knowledge and a post-test focusing on concepts and issues central to the understanding of biodiversity, such as niche and Simpson’s Index. Analysis of perturbations in a food web (by an invasive species) was a special focus of the assessments, reflecting similar concerns prevalent among the scientific community. The results of this evaluation revealed that students with a solid ecological background could successfully deal with the newly acquired concepts presented in the module and the articles.

Attitudes of Secondary School Teachers Towards Teaching

Summary About 100 Israeli teachers representing a wide range of characteristics in terms of background, subject matter, and types of school responded to the Teacher Study Questionnaire (originally developed in Oregon, USA). It was found that although the teachers represented diverse groups they had remarkably similar views about the nature of the teaching job: teaching should be interesting, challenging, creative, and provide opportunities for personal growth. Important conditions for successful teaching are administrative support, a good salary, job security, and appreciation by students, parents, and colleagues. Teachers in Israel, by and large, find teaching to be interesting and enjoyable. They feel free to do in their classes what they want and most of them say that if they had an opportunity to do it all over again they would still choose teaching as their occupation. In spite of this positive attitude they do have complaints on low salary, lack of administrative support, insufficient personal growt...

The Nature of Knowledge in Biology and Its Implications for Teaching and Learning

This paper describes a number of epistemological, psychological and pedagogical principles considered critical to effective biology teaching. The authors illustrate the implementation of these principles in three case studies which focus on photosynthesis, evolution and estuarine biodiversity. Schwab’s Four Commonplaces [46] are used to focus the discussion of how to improve teaching and learning of biological knowledge.