标题：Why do Plants Wilt? Investigating Students’ Understanding of Water Balance in Plants with External Representations at the Macroscopic and Submicroscopic Levels
期刊名称：Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education
印刷版ISSN：1305-8223
电子版ISSN：1305-8223
出版年度：2018
卷号：14
期号：6
页码：2265-2276
DOI：10.29333/ejmste/87119
出版社：Pamukkale Univ Dept Sci Education
摘要：In order to understand water balance in plants, students must understand the relation
between external representations at the macroscopic, microscopic, and submicroscopic
levels. This study investigated how Slovenian students (N = 79) at the primary,
secondary, and undergraduate tertiary levels understand water balance in plants. The
science problem consisted of a text describing the setting, visualizations of the process
occurring in a wilted plant stem, and five tasks. To determine students’ visual attention
to the various elements of the tasks, we used eye tracking and focused on the total
fixation duration in particular areas of interest. As expected, primary school students
showed less knowledge and understanding of the process than the secondary school
and university students did. Students with correct answers spent less time observing
the biological phenomena displayed at the macroscopic and submicroscopic levels
than those with incorrect answers, and more often provided responses that combined
the macro-, micro-, and submicroscopic levels of thought. Learning about difficult
scientific topics, such as the water balance in plants, with representations at the
macroscopic and submicroscopic levels can be either helpful or confusing for learners,
depending on their expertise in using multiple external representations, which is
important to consider in biology and science education.
关键词：biology; eye tracking; multiple representations; osmosis; students
