Learners at two Soweto public schools improved their Chemistry understanding when teachers worked alongside computer simulations, suggesting a scalable strategy for better STEM results in South Africa.
Image: Pixabay
It is possible to significantly improve learners’ understanding of STEM subjects in an economical way, even at disadvantaged schools, according to a recent study.
Researchers from the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and Michigan State University in the US selected two public schools in Soweto and Grade 10 Chemistry topics to test a teaching approach new to South Africa.
Chemistry can be a difficult subject to learn because it requires learners to constantly transition between three different representations of matter. At the macroscopic level, there is matter that can be seen, such as ice melting into water. At the sub-microscopic level, there are reactions between atoms and molecules. And at the symbolic level, learners need to represent chemical reactions through chemical equations.
The 80 learners who participated were 15 to 16 years old and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. None had experience with molecular-level computer simulations or the teaching approach designed for the study. Their knowledge of physical and chemical changes was mostly limited to examples from textbooks, says lead author Teboho Moloi, who did the research as part of his PhD studies at UJ.
In the teaching approach, learners interacted with computer simulations of chemistry processes. One group interacted with chemistry simulations on computers only, and the teachers only assisted with computer-related problems. The other group had the computer simulations and very specific learning guidance from teachers trained to do so. All the learners started with approximately the same level of conceptual understanding, as evidenced by their performance on the Pre-test before the interventions.
“We found that the improvement in learning Chemistry was substantial for both groups. This shows that both interventions were largely effective in promoting learner conceptual understanding of chemistry concepts,” says Prof Ramnarain, director of the Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies in Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics (CALTSTEAM).
However, students who received both teacher guidance and computer simulation supports performed significantly better than those who used computer simulations alone. This suggests that combining teacher support with technology led to stronger learning outcomes than relying on technology by itself, says Teboho Moloi, the PhD candidate researcher who trained the teachers and gathered the research data.
“The innovation is the integration of teacher and computer simulation supports that both aim at addressing similar learner needs. When strategically used, the one form of scaffolding can augment the other and mitigate potential challenges which may arise,” says co-author Prof Joseph Krajcik, UJ Distinguished visiting professor. Prof Krajcik is Director of the CREATE for STEM Institute and Lappan-Phillips Professor of Science Education at Michigan State University in the United States.
The approach is also suitable for other STEM subjects in disadvantaged schools, such as Natural Sciences and Life Sciences. Understanding genetics, for instance, requires switching between that what we can’t see, symbolic representations and human characteristics, adds Krajcik.
Given the positive outcomes of the research, it is recommended that this approach be scaled up for implementation in similar schools in Soweto and other areas to teach chemistry topics in Grade 11.
Schools losing their computers to crime is a major problem in South Africa. "If a school does not have any computers at all, and unlikely to get any, learners could use their cell phones, as most cell phones are compatible with many of the free software and other relevant applications used in the teaching approach," says Moloi.
Integrating this approach in schools throughout South Africa would result in a substantial improvement in students understand chemistry and helping South Africa secure a STEM workforce, concludes Prof Ramnarain.