Compare Integrated Science Curriculum With Subject Science Curriculum On Curriculum Standards And Its Implementary Effects

In our country, new curriculum reformation of basic education has been pushed forward since 1999.The reformational strength this time is more unprecedented than prevenient ones, which curriculum ideasand nurture aims were changed. In this reformation, the mode of science curriculum setting took place,which is integrated science curriculum and subject science curriculum concurrence in junior high school,and subject science curriculum in senior high school. International science curriculum developmental trendis from subject science curriculum tending towards integrated science curriculum, although two kinds ofcurricula have own existent bases, respectively independent value, and value complementarity. In ourcountry, the implementation of integrated science curriculum has many difficulties. As a matter of fact, fewintegrated science curriculum experiment area barge up against large resistances which come fromschoolmasters, teachers, housemasters, persons in all kinds of society who worry about the implementationof integrated science curriculum what would bring forth disadvantage influence on the study of subjectscience curriculum, students' studying science in senior high school, and examination. Are these worriesjust guessed? Have there worries the basis? The conclusions of the dissertation based substantial evidenceresearch will answer this problem.The dissertation compare integrated science curriculum with subject science curriculum based oncurriculum standards and its implementary effects, namely teaching results. The step one is comparingevery part of integrated science curriculum standard with that of subject science curriculum standards, andthen comparing the implementary effects of integrated science curriculum with those of subject sciencecurriculum. The step two is comparing the comparative conclusions on curriculum standards with theconclusions on implementary effects, in order to know whether implementary effects of two kinds ofcurriculum is in accordance with destined aims of two kinds of curriculum standards, namely,understanding destined aims are achieved or not achieved, and then studying unsuccessful reasons, furtherputting forward implementary suggestions for two kinds of science curriculum. The practical values of this research lie in:â‘ Making an objective verdict for the controversy betweenintegrated science curriculum and subject science curriculum;â‘¡Providing reference suggestion foralternative whether integrated science curriculum or subject science curriculum;â‘¢Providing referencesuggestions for modifying two kinds of curriculum standards;â‘£Proving reference suggestions for twokinds of science curriculum implementation.Based on literature study and the text analysis of science curriculumand and physics, chemistry,biology and geography curriculum standards in junior high school, the dissertation discovers that theimplementary effects of two kinds of sciene curriculum should be measured from four aspects which arecomposed of subject scientific knowledge, integrated scientific knowledge, understanding of the nature ofscience, and scientific literacy. The dissertation contains five main research contents. The first content is tocompare integrated science curriculum standard with subject science curriculum standards through themethod of the text analysis. Physics curriculum standard is taken an example of subject science curriculumstandards. In this content, emphasizing more is to compare the requests to physics knowledge of sciencecurriculum standard with physics curriculum standards, namely, the quantity, difficulty and system ofphysics knowledge whether or not has obvious difference between science and physics curriculumstandards. The second content is to compare students' physics knowledge in integrated science curriculumexperiment area with insubject science curriculum experiment area through test method. The third contentis to compare students' comprehensive science knowledge in integrated science curriculum experiment areawith in subject science curriculum experiment area through test method. Because comprehensive sciencetest contain lone physics, chemistry, biology and geography questions, making use of it can also comparestudents' subject science knowledge. Because two tests contain all scientific,inquiry questions, the secondand third content also compare students' the method of scientific exploration. The fourth content is tocompare students' understanding of the nature of science in integrated science curriculum experiment areawith subject science curriculum experiment area through questionnaire method. The fifth content is tocompare two kinds of students' scientific literacy through questionnaire method.The students' background in integrated and subject science curriculum experiment areas should be asfar as possible same in order to increase comparable degree. This dissertation chose those students ofintegrated and subject science curriculum experiment areas in identical city of Changsha as samples, fromeach which 400 testees are chosen through making use of the method of layered random drawing samples.In consideration of studying the relativity among four studying results with substantial evidences, all testeeswere requested to complete physics and science tests, and two questionnaires of the nature of science andscientific literacy in Mid-May of 2006. The valid callback rate of two tests and two questionnaires allexceeded 80ï¼…. Two tests that all testees were not familiar with are the tests of finishing junior high schoolin 2004 came from Beibei of Chongqing and Nanshan of Shenzhen which are successful in sciencecurriculum reformation. The writer by oneself designed a questionnaire of the nature of science based onliterature study. The writer consulted international currency citizen scientific literacy measuring pattern,made the questionnaire to Chinese in 2001 a little of change, and formed a scientific literacy questionnaireto the students. Making use of literature study, text analysis, test, questionnaire, and interview, this dissertation getssome research conclusions, which are as follows:(1) The property and target of integrated and subject science curriculum are same, the curricular ideais basic homology. Two kinds of science curriculum all take exaltation of students' scientific literacy astheir general goal. The material goals of two kinds of science curriculum can be compose of threedimensions which are knowledge and skill, process and method, and emotion attitude and worthinessnotion.(2) The requests to scientific inquiry in science curriculum standards and physics curriculumstandard are basically same. The dissertation suggests that physics curriculum standard adds the requeststo study in the statement of scientific inquiry. The quantity of the elements of scientific inquiry process inscience and physics curriculum standard is different, the former is six, the latter is seven, so the dissertationsuggests that the elements should be unified seven same ones in two curriculum standards, which areputting forward scientific questions, guess with assumption, establishing plan and then designingexperiment, observing with experimenting and then collecting proofs, analysis with demonstration,valuation, expression and then communication with cooperation. Science curriculum standard is moredisadvantaged over concrete operation of teaching and evaluation which has less object items, moreabstract contents, and more monotonous behavior verbs than physics curriculum standard. Physicscurriculum standard has lower level layer of behavior verbs for scientific inquiry than science curriculumstandard so that it emphasizes on inquiry process rather than inquiry result which puts into effect emotionattitude and worthiness notion aim, such as evaluation meaning, expression consciousness, cooperationattitude and collaboration spirit.(3) Physics subject contents in science curriculum standard come from its substance subject matter.The matters of three first class physics subject topics in science curriculum standard, including substance,movement and reciprocity, and energy, come from "familiar substance, structure of substance", "substance'movement and reciprocity", and "energy and energy sources" of science curriculum standard.(4) The requests to physics knowledge and skill between science and physics curriculum standard isbasically accordant. Chi-Square test results are show that the amount and difficulty of physics knowledgepoints between science and physics curriculum standards are not distinctive. The system characteristic ofphysics subject knowledge within science curriculum standard is good, if it is called that the knowledge iscoherent in front and back, and doesn't jump up.(5) The education of the nature of science should be common aim of all science curriculum, thoughscience curriculum standard puts forward definitely that students should primarily understand the nature ofscience, and subject science curriculum standards don't obviously do that. The dissertation puts forwardthree dimensions of the nature of science and component factors of its each dimension, and designs aquestionnaire of the nature of science. Three dimensions are the nature of scientific knowledge, scientificexploration, and scientific career. The nature of scientific knowledge is involved six factors, such ascognition, relativity, accumulation, repetition, publicity, and limitation. The nature of scientific explorationrelates to seven factors, such as demonstration, induction, creativity, foresee, not fix, not authority, and not absolute objectivity. The nature of scientific career refers to science and morality, science and technology,science and society, and scientist identity.(6) The obvious difference of different subject science knowledge and skill between students inintegrated and subject curriculum experiment area is not accordant. There is wondrously marked differencebetween students in integrated science curriculum experiment area and subject curriculum experiment area,the former is lower than the latter. There is no distinctive in chemistry subject between students of twoexperiment area. The former is better than the latter in biology and geography subject. So, the worry thatintegrated science curriculum is disadvantage over the study of subject science knowledge should mainly isphysics subject, not all science subject.(7) On the one hand, concerning comprehensive subject science contents, there is not obviousdifference between the students in integrated science curriculum experiment area and the students inanother area. On another hand, concerning integrated subject science contents, the student in integratedscience curriculum experiment area are obviously better than another student. The result approves thatintegrated science curriculum benefits to the reciprocity and integration between subject knowledge.(8) The students in integrated science curriculum experiment area are obviously worse at impersonalproblem, but obviously better at subjective problem than the students in subject science curriculumexperiment area. The result shows that students in integrated science curriculum experiment area are betterat analysing and solving problem, expressing themselves using language and letter than the students insubject science curriculum experiment area.(9) Comparing students' achievements of science inquiry items within physics and science test papers,and students' responses of contrast and probability questions within scientific literacy questionnaire inintegrated experiment area with the achievements and responses in subject experiment area, the dissertationfinds there is no distinctive at the methods of scientific inquiry between two kinds of students.(10) There is no distinctive at the understanding of the nature of science between two kinds ofstudents, but a trend is existent that the understanding of the nature of science in integrated experiment areais lower than that in subject experiment area. The main performance of the trend is in two aspects, the firstis the student of in integrated experiment area is lower than the student of subject experiment area in thenature of science exploration and science career, the second is, in seventeen factor of the nature of science,the numbers of understanding worse more than the numbers of understanding better in integratedexperiment area. Otherwise it is found out that post-modernism science views influence little on juniorschool students.(11) There is no distinctive between the students in integrated science curriculum experiment area andthe students in subject science curriculum experiment area in scientific literacy, the former is 4.6ï¼…, thelatter is 8.1ï¼…, and two kinds of students all are too low. There is distinctive between the students inintegrated experiment area and the students in subject experiment area in scientific knowledge, the formeris 14.7ï¼…, the latter is 38.5ï¼…. There is no distinctive between integrated experiment area and subjectexperiment area in scientific method, science and society, the former is 65.3ï¼…, 22.0ï¼…, the latter is 64.1ï¼…,20.7ï¼…. (12) The curriculum implementary effect shows that integrated science curriculum has not advantageover subject science curriculum in promoting students' understanding of the nature of science, which thereare two main reasons resulted in, the first reason is scientific history and the nature of science are not thecontents of examination in integrated science curriculum, the second reason is the function betweenintegrated and subject science curriculum in promoting students' understanding of the nature of science hasno distinct, and the first is more than the second.(13) Why is there very big margin with physics subject knowledge and skill between thepre-established target and the teaching effects? The two central reasons are found out through aquestionnaire to science teachers and interview to teaching study persons. The first, the system and thelogic of contents of subject knowledge' layout in integrated science curriculum is not good as that insubject curriculum, which is itself reason with integrated science curriculum. The second, science teachersare very lack of speciality knowledge.This study shows that there are five matters in science curriculum implementation. The first, theteacher lacks of speciality knowledge results in that physics knowledge of the student in integrated sciencecurriculum experiment area is worse than it of another student. The second, the advantage of subjectintegration in integrated science curriculum over in subject science curriculum has not been exerted. Thethird, two kinds of students' ability to scientific exploration are all most bad. The fourth, althoughintegrated science curriculum definitely puts forward to promote students' understanding of the nature ofscience, the teaching effects show that integrated science curriculum can not do better in exaltation ofstudents' understanding on the nature of science than subject science curriculum. The fifth, two kinds ofstudents' scientific literacy are all worse.For resolving above-mentioned five matters, making use of a questionnaire to science teachers and atalk to teaching study persons, writer suggests five advices for science curriculum implementation. The firstis exaltation of science teachers' speciality knowledge; in order to do better we should educate teachers andreinforce teachers' study by oneself. The second is adopting many ways to improve science courses'teaching effects. The third is high normal college and university should educate science teachers. Thefourth is to reinforce science inquiry teaching. The fifth is to pay attention to STS education and sciencehistory teaching.