Promoting Junior High Students’ Situational Interests With Multiple Teaching Strategies in Informal Nanometer-Related Curricula

Abstract

Student interest plays a vital role in science learning. In particular, junior high students in Taiwan showed higher interest in informal than formal science learning. Thus, this study investigated the relationship of junior high students’ situational interest and multiple teaching strategies in informal nanometer-related curricula and the source of situational interest. Two questionnaires were administered to 110 students and semi–structured interviews of selected students were conducted. The results showed that after implementing multiple teaching strategies in informal nanometer-related curricula, the junior high school students’ situational interest increased, especially for low-level interest student group. The findings suggested that the students perceived the following teaching strategies to have helped enhanced their situational interests: hands-on activity, teaching aids demonstration, providing examples from daily life, and multi-media presentation; by contrast, the “question and discussion” teaching strategy was regarded to have a lesser effect in promoting situational interest for lower-level student group as compared to the higher-level student group. The results of the interview showed that while involving in "hands-on laboratory work," students felt a sense of novelty, instant enjoyment, meaningfulness, exploration, understanding, and achievement, which contributed to enhancing their situational interest. The findings suggested that teachers should adopt various teaching strategies for students with different levels to enhance student’s situational interest.

Keywords

• informal nanometer-related curriculum
• situational interest
• teaching strategy