Secondary Biology Teachers Research Articles

An Analysis of Examination Question Trends in the field of Biology Education on Secondary Biology Teacher Appointment Examination from 2014 to 2024

This study aims to analyze the examination trend of questions related to the field of biology education among the questions of the secondary biology teacher appointment examination from 2014 to 2024. The analysis of examination question trends was conducted by using the contents of the evaluation area and the sub-evaluation content elements of the biology subject suggested by the Korea Institute for Curriculum Evaluation (KICE) as a framework. The results of the study are as follows. First, only 75% of the evaluation content elements were linked to the set questions, and it was found that only biology teaching-learning theory, biology teaching-learning practice, and biology teaching-learning evaluation areas had questions linked to all evaluation content elements. Second, the biology teachinglearning theory, biology teaching-learning practice, and biology inquiry areas accounted for 67% of the total questions. Third, it was found that no question was set in the biology education environment and support area. These results show that the secondary biology teacher appointment exam is biased towards certain areas and evaluation content elements. Furthermore, since the evaluation area and evaluation content elements also affect the education for the professionalism of prospective biology teachers, it shows the need to comprehensively review and improve the content of the evaluation area and evaluation content elements, considering teachers’ competency and educational factors for the successful progress of field education.

DIGITAL LITERACY IN BIOLOGY EDUCATION THROUGH MOBILE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES

The integration of mobile learning technologies in biology education presents a novel approach to enhancing digital literacy among students. This study investigates the impact of mobile learning tools, such as educational apps and virtual labs, on developing digital competencies in secondary school biology lessons. Employing a mixed-methods research design, the study combines quantitative surveys to assess changes in students' digital literacy levels with qualitative interviews to gain insights from educators and students. Participants included secondary school students and biology teachers from various schools, who integrated mobile learning technologies into their biology curriculum. The results demonstrate a marked improvement in students’ digital literacy, with a notable increase in their ability to navigate, evaluate, and create information using digital technologies. Furthermore, the integration of mobile technologies was found to enhance student engagement and understanding of biology concepts. This study contributes to educational technology literature by highlighting the role of mobile learning in promoting digital literacy and providing practical insights for its implementation in biology education.

A Case Study of a Secondary Biology Teacher’s Pedagogical Reasoning and Action with Augmented Reality Technology

While recognizing the vital role of teachers in augmented reality (AR) integration, a noticeable literature gap exists regarding how science educators address challenges related to technology, pedagogy, and content during AR instructional design and implementation. Conducted in a secondary school in Taiwan, this study addressed this gap by conducting a qualitative single-case analysis of a science teacher’s integration of AR technology into her biology lessons. The teacher’s pedagogical reasoning and action processes were observed and analyzed over 10 weeks, with a focus on micro-level exploration across two iterations of pedagogical analysis, design, implementation, reflection, and revision. The primary data collection includes teacher interviews, supplemented by teacher reflective notes, lesson plans, teaching materials, researcher observations and field notes taken during the weekly, one-hour teacher learning community meetings, and the AR-integrated lessons, student assessment results, and feedback. The study was informed by both the Technology Integration Planning model and the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework. Data analysis techniques involved deductive coding and thematic analysis. The findings reveal the teacher’s developmental proficiency in AR, a reimagined depiction of AR-enhanced instructional content, a shift from didactic-based to inquiry-based teaching approaches, and an intertwined development of technological pedagogical knowledge, technological content knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. This study provides valuable insights into how the educator became a pedagogical designer, overcame individual and contextual challenges, and leveraged reflective strategies to enhance biology lessons using AR technology, emphasizing technology’s potential to enrich pedagogy in science education.

Teaching Science to Students with Disabilities Using Socio-Scientific Issues

Students with disabilities experience inequitable learning opportunities in science classrooms. To create equitable learning environments, science teachers must embed supports within their curriculum units. Teachers rely on their beliefs about the capabilities of their students, their role as science teachers, and the goals of science education to adapt their curriculum units. Curricular changes occur through their pedagogical design capacity (PDC) during lesson planning and enactments, in which their beliefs inform their PDC choices. Yet there is little research regarding science teachers’ beliefs about teaching students with disabilities and how they enact their science curriculum materials in general education science classrooms. This qualitative case study focused on one secondary biology teacher who taught a socio-scientific issues (SSI) based unit in a remedial biology classroom. Teacher beliefs and PDC served as the theoretical and analytical frameworks. Data included classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews. Findings show the teacher’s beliefs about her students’ capabilities, role as their science teacher, and goals for science learning drove her PDC. She scaffolded, adapted, and improvised to support learners, while not changing the rigor of the curriculum unit. This study illustrates a vision of equitable science instruction with implications for bringing this vision to life for students with disabilities in science classrooms.

Exploring secondary school biology teachers’ conceptions of scientific laws and methods

ABSTRACT The present study investigates how Greek in-service secondary education biology teachers understand the unique features of school biology and physics when considering the biological theoretical edifice and method. Our theoretical framework focuses on important differences that exist between the neo-Darwinian and Newtonian worldviews, while our methodology involves questionnaires and mainly individual interviews with fourteen (14) biology teachers. The study findings indicate that biology teachers encounter difficulties in unraveling the distinction between nomothetic and non-nomothetic natural sciences and in understanding the historical character of biology. They also emphasize the importance of scientific laws and experimentation when considering the epistemological features of biology, and the reason is that they reflect on the issue of what science or scientific knowledge is by simultaneously adopting two contradictory perspectives. On the one hand, they stress what a science should be if it is to be called ‘science’, and on the other hand, they focus on how a particular science, such as biology behaves. Unavoidably, a logical tension is created in their minds, and as a way of solving this tension, they view biology as being in a state of ongoing change towards an ideal, and, in many aspects, a positivistic pattern of science.

Supporting the Development of Pre-service Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge about Planning for Practical Work

ABSTRACT Practical, or laboratory, work is a common pedagogical strategy used in school science classrooms, yet its effectiveness for enhancing student learning is contested. Developing teachers’ pedagogical knowledge about planning for practical work can improve its effectiveness by ensuring that tasks are well-conceived and effective for linking what students actually do in practical work with the concepts teachers intend them to learn. This paper reports findings from an intervention that aimed to develop pre-service teachers’ pedagogical knowledge about planning for practical work. The intervention took place during a 12-week secondary biology teacher preparation method unit over two consecutive years. The intervention introduced the problems associated with ineffective practical work then engaged pre-service teachers in recall, immersion, noticing, microteaching and reflection experiences designed to promote their pedagogical thinking about practical work. The effectiveness of the intervention was assessed using data collected from 76 student assignments and one focus group. Thematic data analysis used declarative and procedural knowledge as a theoretical lens to seek evidence of the development of preservice teachers’ pedagogical knowledge. The intervention was found to enhance the development of PST declarative knowledge about various aspects of planning, in particular by recognition of the complexity of planning for practical work, the need to link what students do with objects and the ideas the teacher intends students learn, and the value of reflective practice. Findings indicate more scaffolding is needed to support PSTs when developing procedural knowledge in relation to practical work.

Immunology concepts for secondary biology teachers

The research aims to know the concepts of immunity for biology teachers of the secondary stage, and to achieve this goal the researchers constructed a multiple choice test for the concepts of immunity, its types and its related fields and contents consisting of (26) test items with three alternatives only one of which represents the correct answer and was chosen A sample consisting of (254) teachers and a school of biology for the secondary stage belonging to the Education Directorates in the Diwaniyah and Karbala governorates, by (20) teachers and a school as a preliminary survey sample, (132) teachers and a school for a second survey sample (the statistical analysis sample), and (102) A teacher and a school is a sample of the final application of the test after making sure of its validity and consistency, and the results showed that teachers possess an appropriate level of information related to concepts of immunology and the absence of statistically significant differences in the level of possession of immunity concepts according to the gender variable between male and female teachers, and the research came out with a set of recommendations.

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) Profiles of Senior Secondary Biology Teachers at Public Schools in Bireuen District, Aceh, Indonesia

The combination of pedagogical competence and good professional competence becomes a necessity for teachers. PCK is a knowledge developed by teachers over time, through experiences on how to teach the material in various techniques and approaches to gain a wealth of student understanding. This research was conducted to find out the profile of PCK of Biology teachers of senior high schools. The study was conducted in April 2018. The population in this study was all Biology teachers of senior high schools in Bireuen district (N=137). While the samples of this study were 32 Biology teachers selected by cluster sampling. The method used in this research was the quantitative method with descriptive analysis through survey design. Teachers’ PCK was obtained by CoRe (Content Representation) instrument and triangulated data with students’ questionnaire. The results showed that PCK profile of Biology teachers at senior high schools in Bireuen district was at the growing PCK level.

Investigating the dimensions of modeling competence among preservice science teachers: Meta‐modeling knowledge, modeling practice, and modeling product

AbstractWorldwide, teachers are expected to engage their students in authentic practices, like scientific modeling. Research suggests that teachers experience challenges when integrating modeling in their classroom instruction, with one explanation that teachers themselves lack the necessary modeling competence. Currently, theoretical conceptualizations structure the modeling competence into three dimensions: meta‐modeling knowledge, modeling practice, and modeling products. While each of these dimensions is well researched on its own and the three dimensions are commonly expected to be highly positively related, studies investigating their specific relationships are widely lacking. Aiming to fill this gap, the present study investigated the meta‐modeling knowledge, modeling practice, and modeling products of 35 secondary preservice biology teachers engaging in a black box modeling task. Data were collected with an established pen‐and‐paper questionnaire consisting of five constructed response items assessing meta‐modeling knowledge and by videotaping the participants engaging in the black box modeling task. Herein, the three dimensions of modeling competence were operationalized as five variables including decontextualized and contextualized meta‐modeling knowledge, complexity, and homogeneity of the modeling processes and a modeling product score. In contrast to our expectations and common assumptions in the literature, significant relationships between the five variables were widely lacking. Only the complexity of the modeling processes correlated significantly with the quality of the modeling products. To investigate this relationship further, a qualitative in‐depth analysis of two cases is presented. Implications for biology teacher education are discussed.

Biology Teacher’s understanding of Nature of Science (NOS)

This study aims to determine the understanding of high school biology teachers about the nature of science. Teacher understanding was measured using the View of Nature of Science (VNOS) form C instrument developed and refined from VNOS form B to measure the understanding of the nature of science of secondary biology teachers. Understanding the nature of science needs to be owned by science students and teachers to avoid any misconceptions about science. Research on understanding the nature of science teachers of science is still not widely carried out in Indonesia. This qualitative study using VNOS Form involved 9 Biology teachers who taught in high schools from different schools. The VNOS Form C which has been translated into the Indonesia version was administered to respondents by using google form. Ten questions represent the 14 aspects of VNOS Form C. Based on the results of the data analysis, it is concluded that VNOS form C can be used to measure the understanding of the nature of science for biology teachers. However, the study showed that most biology teachers are still in the status of naïve understanding about the nature of science rather than eclectic and informed understanding. This study implies the need for improvement of teacher understanding of the nature of science.

Lesson-study on health education with pre-service biology teachers

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to present an appraisal of a lesson-study implementation with pre-service biology teachers concerning a health education issue, how blood pressure works and how it is affected. The participants were 11 pre-service teachers, a secondary school biology teacher and three teacher educators from a local University. A qualitative and interpretative approach was followed. Data were collected through participant observation, content analysis of the pre-service biology teachers’ individual written reflections, and their proposal of a lesson plan. The results evidenced the value of this formative approach, concerning the learning opportunities it offers, not only related to the scientific content knowledge but also the didactic knowledge developed by pre-service teachers. They seemed to develop a holistic understanding of how to teach a theme as multidimensional as this one, health education, but they also developed didactic knowledge related to different central aspects of the teaching process, concerning lesson planning, task development, classroom management, and communication, and became aware of the importance of developing several crucial competencies as science teachers. The lesson-study approach revealed to be a strategy for learning about teaching planning that has the particularity of bringing theory and practice remarkably closer.

Teaching and learning through scientific practices in the laboratory in biology education

The overall aim of this thesis is to explore challenges and opportunities with teaching and learning through scientific practices in the laboratory in biology education. This thesis is based on three articles that are introduced and discussed in an extended abstract. My focus is on practice in the laboratory, and in the thesis, I have investigated practice in two different ways. First, I have investigated upper secondary biology teachers’ practices as reported in a survey and group interview (Article I). Secondly, I have analyzed undergraduate biology students’ practices through microscale analysis of their reasoning when constructing representations in the laboratory (Article II and III). The findings from Article I show that the biology teachers’ primarily report that they implement teacher-directed laboratory work with the aim of illustrating content knowledge. The findings from Article II and III shows how different representations, such as drawings and gestures, support students’ model-based reasoning. Based on these findings, I argue for the fruitfulness of a focus on modelling through representation construction as a scientific practice in the laboratory.

Attending to science concepts during planning: Exploring and supporting the process

AbstractTeachers make many important decisions about instruction during the process of planning. While educational researchers have extensively explored teacher planning, this research has largely neglected the ways teachers attend to subject matter while planning. We first explore ways a sample of 13 experienced secondary biology teachers attend to science concepts in planning. Teachers in this study reported attending to science ideas in order to decide what was important to teach and to enhance their own knowledge of science concepts. We next introduced teachers to a tool, called the concept model, that is designed to support teachers in attending to science concepts while planning. After completing a concept model, participants reported that the tool influenced them to focus on important aspects of the concept, recognize the range of complexity in the topic, consider aspects students find difficult, evaluate their own understanding, and identify connected concepts. These findings extend our understanding of how teachers attend to subject matter during planning and suggest the potential of a tool like the concept model for supporting that process.

Unravelling the holistic nature of ecosystems: biology teachers’ conceptions of ecosystem borders

ABSTRACT Science and environmental educators implicitly presuppose that the ecosystem per se is clearly defined and consider learners’ misunderstandings to be incorrect scientific interpretations of uncontested knowledge content. The present study, however, explores how in-service secondary education Greek biology teachers address the topic of ‘ecosystem delimitation’ under the assumption that the ecosystem is an ill-defined concept. If it is to be considered a scientific (holistic) entity, the ecosystem finds its definitional and accompanying features within the ecological field of systems ecology, which declined after the 1970s under pressures of persisting unsolved puzzles and problems. Our research focuses on the background assumptions fuelling the difficulties that system ecologists encounter in sufficiently determining ecosystem’s borders and anchoring ‘ecosystem’ holism in the empirical world. The results indicate that biology teachers address the topic of ecosystem delimitation from a perspective that apparently differs from the realistic/empirical and instrumental perspectives of system ecologists. Moreover, biology teachers cannot engage with how system ecologists delimit ecosystems and instead resort to their personal experience (e.g. individualist insights) and naïve relational ideas, which along with deficiencies in systems thinking and in Nature of science (NOS) reasoning result in the development of an ‘ecosystem’ version that appears inconsistent with (ecosystem) holism.

Using a Post-Box Strategy to Elicit & Address Student Misconceptions in Biology

Students often bring to biology classrooms ideas that are not in line with scientific thought. Simply telling students that their ideas are wrong does not always help advance their scientific thinking. This article describes a teaching and learning activity that allows secondary biology teachers to elicit, interpret, and address students' misconceptions in a meaningful way. The activity provides a chance for students to discuss their nascent ideas about biology with their peers in a safe and nonthreatening environment. More importantly, the activity engages students in a process of reconsidering their initial ideas through reasoning about why certain ideas are scientifically correct.

Unravelling the holistic nature of ecosystems: biology teachers’ conceptions of ecosystem balance and self-regulation

ABSTRACTThe present study explores how in-service secondary education Greek biology teachers understand aspects of the concept of ecosystem under the assumption that the ecosystem is an ill-defined concept. If it is to be considered a holistic entity, the ecosystem acquires its definitional features within the ecological field of systems ecology, which was developed during the 1950s and 1960s but declined after the 1970s under the pressures of internal inconsistencies and persisting unsolved puzzles. Because of these problems, the ‘ecosystem’ suffers from serious definitional shortcomings. The present study investigates how in-service secondary education Greek biology teachers address the problem of ecosystem ‘systemness’ and topics that are intrinsically associated with what kind of system the ecosystem is, such as ecosystem balance and self-regulation. Our research compares the background assumptions that lie behind these topics in the field of systems ecology with the analogous assumptions of biology teachers and demonstrates the presence of inconsistencies. Biology teachers do not share with system ecologists the same background assumptions, encounter difficulties in understanding that behind the ecosystem there is something resembling a structure or organisation and hold an individualist/reductionist view of the ecosystem that complies with current (liberal) ideological considerations of wholes.

Constructing Graphs in Biology Class: Secondary Biology Teachers’ Beliefs, Motivation, and Self-Reported Practices

There has been a growing awareness that graphing is an essential part of the science curriculum. While much research has focused on student conceptions and abilities regarding graphical representations, only few studies have investigated what teachers think about them and how they use graphs in science class. The purpose of this study is to explore educational beliefs, motivation, and teaching practices of German secondary biology teachers regarding graph construction. Via questionnaire surveys, 71 teachers from different regions in Germany rated their beliefs and motivation as well as the frequency of different graph construction activities in biology class. The teachers surveyed in this study were quite motivated in their teaching of graph construction. Furthermore, they tended to believe that graph construction should be practiced explicitly in biology class and that students should learn clear strategies for constructing graphs. We found that teaching subjects and own research experience make a difference in teachers’ beliefs and motivation regarding graph construction in biology class. The self-report on classroom practices revealed that participants may provide limited opportunities for students to experience graphing as a social and iterative practice. Implications are drawn for teacher education and professional development as well as for further research in teacher education contexts.

Teaching Practices for Enactment of Socio-scientific Issues Instruction: an Instrumental Case Study of an Experienced Biology Teacher

The identification of high-leverage teaching practices that can be improved through targeted practice should contribute to the enhancement of teachers’ facilitation of instruction and improve student learning outcomes. Researchers have begun to identify subject-specific teaching practices that are expected to enhance science teaching specifically. However, it is not clear what teaching practices look like in classrooms engaging students in learning science through socio-scientific issues. In this instrumental case study, we set out to identify those practices that an experienced secondary biology teacher employed during her successful enactment of socio-scientific issues (SSI) instruction about antibiotic resistance. Using both deductive codes from the literature and inductive coding, we analyzed nine 90-min video-taped lessons that comprised the unit. We identified science teaching practices that were particularly important for her enactment, as well as SSI-specific teaching practices not previously identified in the teaching practices literature, which included contextualizing teaching and learning in the issue, challenging students to analyze the issue from multiple perspectives, and urging students to employ skepticism when analyzing potentially biased information regarding the issue. These findings suggest that the manner in which teachers are currently being prepared is likely lacking in terms of helping teachers develop a full suite of teaching practices that contribute to the successful enactment of SSI instruction. Further research directed at how ideal SSI instruction is achieved and identifying those practices that are requisite to doing so is recommended.

Collaborative Mentoring for Retaining Secondary Biology Teachers.

Veteran biology teachers are at risk of leaving the classroom due to burnout, feeling uninspired, and overall job dissatisfaction. One way to keep veteran teachers engaged is through continued mentoring. Yet current mentoring programs vary in scope, often focus too heavily on one-to-one talk, with mentors serving as therapists, and generally fail to include veteran teachers. Considering this is not how schools operate, we argue active mentoring for veteran teachers is best when embedded into regular school practice. Collaborative mentoring, as we have termed it, pairs experienced high school teachers with other veteran colleagues, including university professors, in professional development activities centering on improving classroom practices. We believe that collaborative mentoring holds potential to meet the needs of all stakeholders—high school students for support in learning laboratory and writing skills; university faculty for hands-on classroom work and reflective practice, as well as for sharing content and pedagogical knowledge with professionals in the field; and, specifically, veteran biology teachers for expanding access to meaningful professional development opportunities. Focusing on applicable classroom pedagogy serves as a cost-effective model for professional development for veteran teachers, possibly increasing job satisfaction and teacher retention in high schools across the nation.

A Practical Approach to Differentiated Instruction: How Biology Teachers Redesigned Their Genetics and Ecology Lessons

ABSTRACTIn this study we investigated how a theoretical framework we developed for making differentiated instruction practical worked out in a trajectory (1 year, 5 sessions) that aimed to support 5 secondary biology teachers in designing differentiated instruction practices. The key feature of the framework is the development of cost-effective procedures—heuristics—that aim to support teachers in redesigning their lessons into differentiated instruction (instrumentality) that sufficiently match their work context (congruence), within a limited amount of time and with limited resources (low cost). Our research questions were as follows: Did the heuristic support enable the 5 biology teachers to design differentiated instruction lessons? Did the teachers consider the design and enactment of the lessons practical? To answer our questions we collected the following data: lesson designs and recordings of regular lessons and of redesigned lessons, expected value and perceived advantages and disadvantages to determine how the teachers valued the redesign of their lessons and why, and student responses to a short questionnaire to gain some insight into how they valued the lessons. We found that all 5 teachers were able and willing to apply the heuristics in a way that balanced their goals of controlling the learning processes combined with handing over responsibility to the student. Although it was conducted on a small scale, we contend that our study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of what teachers consider to be practical support for changing their teaching practice.