The purpose of the research was to identify how Slovenian primary and secondary school students of various age groups explain the particulate nature of the states of matter of water and air. The qualitative research included five 12, 14, and 16 year old students. A semi-structured interview including four computer-displayed tasks was used for the data collection. The research results show that all of the students correctly identified the states of matter of water at the particulate level. It was found that the students had difficulty justifying their selection. The study confirmed the existence of: (a) misunderstanding regarding the interpretation of the particulate nature of matter, (b) a failure to distinguish between particle and matter, and (c) the inadequate description of submicroscopic level of matter with macroscopic level concept. The survey results provide an insight into the mindset of students and serve as a starting point for teachers’ lesson planning.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11578697
Increasing amounts of text are read from various types of screens. The shape and the size of a typeface determine the legibility of texts. The aim of this study was to investigate the legibility of different typefaces displayed on LCD screens. Two typefaces (Georgia and Verdana), designed for screen renderings were analyzed by eye-tracking technology in 8 different sizes. Regardless of the font size, the text set in Verdana were read faster. For both typefaces the reading speed increased with increasing the font size. The number of fixation increased with the character size, while the fixation time was shorter.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3116912
The intention of the research was discovering to what extent pupils can explain and understand the processes occurring in a withered flower on a macroscopic and sub-microscopic level. This paper analyses the answers of 40 pupils attending the seventh grade of primary school, and 31 pupils attending the ninth. Most students successfully explained the biological phenomenon they were observing on a macroscopic level, but experienced problems with grasping the processes on the sub-microscopic (particle) level of the presentation. This task was labelled difficult and mildly interesting by the pupils. Most pupils could not accurately explain the meaning and function of the particles shown in the animation. However, when asked to select the correct animation depicting the movement of particles within a cell, the majority of pupils selected the right answer out of three given options. Some pupils used their knowledge of the structure of the cell and its function on a microscopic level to support their arguments. The analysis shows that the use of multimedia as teaching material requires careful consideration regarding the content of the lesson, the difficulty of the presentations, and the pre-existing knowledge of the pupils. This particular research shows that the pupils' knowledge of the structure of the cell was lacking, which affected their accomplishments. To better the results obtained in this research paper, another research testing how well pupils perform given tasks if they are given a microscope as an additional teaching accessory (apart from having to rely solely on their theoretical knowledge of macroscopy and submicroscopy), is recommended.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11779657