A Game-Based Learning Activity to Promote Conceptual Understanding of Chordates’ Phylogeny and Self-Efficacy to Learn Evolutionary Biology

Santhanat Punyasettro,Pratchayapong Yasri

doi:10.12973/eu-jer.10.4.1937

Abstract

<p style="text-align:justify">Understanding phylogenetic trees representing evolutionary relationships of living organisms is essential in school biology. Traditional instructions based on lectures and textbooks with pictorial presentations have been proven ineffective to promote students’ understanding of the concept. This study, therefore, developed a game-based learning activity called the VERT card game to enhance students’ learning of the phylogenetic taxonomy of chordates. The VERT card game was designed to lay the foundation for different characteristics of chordate classes, as well as to allow students to construct and interpret their evolutionary relationships based on the phylogenetic tree. The effectiveness of the VERT card game was verified by a pre-test and post-test design with 109 middle school students in Thailand. The statistical result revealed that students’ mean scores increased significantly in the post-test, compared to the pre-test, indicating their improved understanding. In addition, after participating in the learning activity, the student participants were found to increase their self-efficacy to learn evolutionary biology statistically. Also, it showed positive views towards the usefulness of the developed card game as a large number of them expressed that they would like to use it for their lesson reviews and wished to have this form of learning activity in other topics in biology.</p>

Highlights

Nowadays, various forms of active learning have been developed and implemented to improve students’ learning which have been reported in a wide range of disciplines such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education (Changtong et al, 2020), computer sciences (Threekunprapa & Yasri, 2020), and biology education (Meekaew & Yasri, 2020)
The results from the conceptual test of the phylogenetic tree as shown in Table 3 revealed a significant increase of the mean score after the student participants were exposed to the VERT card game activity, both in the levels of understanding of phylogenetic trees based on 15 multiple-choice questions and of construction of phylogenetic trees based on a 5-point written task
The results suggested that the student participants could apply their understanding to construct a phylogenetic tree of given species by themselves as a result of their participation in the card game activity and the phylogenetic tree construction

Summary

Introduction

Various forms of active learning have been developed and implemented to improve students’ learning which have been reported in a wide range of disciplines such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education (Changtong et al, 2020), computer sciences (Threekunprapa & Yasri, 2020), and biology education (Meekaew & Yasri, 2020). These can be seen in a number of instructional approaches such as hands-on activities, game-based learning, problem-based learning, and mobile learning (Chen et al, 2009). These two aspects are set to be investigated through the lens of self-efficacy and the level of use which will be discussed later in greater depth

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion