The Effectiveness of a Proposed Unit in Bio-Mathematics for Developing Secondary Stage Students’ Deep Understanding Skills

Dr. Mervat Hamid Mohamad Hany1

Dr. Mohamed El-Sayed Ahmed El-Demerdash2

This research aimed at investigating the effectiveness of a proposed

unit in bio-mathematics for developing secondary stage students’ deep understanding skills. Therefore, the research sought answers to the following main question: “How effective is a proposed unit in bio-mathematics in developing second-grade Science-major students’ deep understanding skills at the secondary stage? This question is branched out into the following sub-questions:

1.   What Bio-mathematical issues should be integrated in the proposed

unit in “Bio-mathematics” for second-grade Science-major students at the secondary stage?

2.   What are the deep understanding skills necessary for second-grade Science-major students at the secondary stage?

3.   What are the features of a proposed unit in Bio-mathematics for second-grade Science-major students at the secondary stage?

4.   What is the effectiveness of the proposed unit in enhancing the sampled students’ achievement levels of Bloom (knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, and synthesis)?

5.   What is the effectiveness of the proposed unit in developing the sampled students’ deep understanding skills (generative thinking skills: Fluency, flexibility, posing hypotheses, making predictions, making decisions, interpreting, and questioning)?

The following instruments were prepared: A list of pertinent bio-mathematical issues and a list of deep understanding skills necessary for secondary-stage students were prepared by the current researchers. Accordingly, the proposed unit in “Bio-mathematics” was prepared, along with a teacher guide, for developing the secondary-stage second graders’ achievement and deep understanding skills in Bio-mathematics. Moreover, an achievement test and a test of deep understanding skills were prepared. Then, the proposed unit was taught to the research group (N=35) of Science major second graders at Sidi Salem secondary school in Kafr El-Sheikh for the school year 2014/2015.

1 Assistant Professor of curriculum and instruction of Science, faculty of education – Damietta University 2 Lecturer of curriculum and instruction of Mathematics, faculty of education – Menoufia University.

The achievement and deep understanding tests were administered

to the research group students before and after teaching the proposed unit. The results revealed a statistically significant difference at 0.05 between the mean scores of the pre-tests and post-tests of achievement and deep understanding in favor of the post-tests.

The research recommended that the proposed unit of Bio-mathematics be used in Science major courses of study in the secondary stage for the purpose of developing students' deep understanding. It also recommended a training of student teachers on teaching integrated content instruction in Mathematics and Biology. A training of in-service Biology teachers was equally recommended for developing their integrated content instruction skills in Biology and Mathematics. Finally it was recommended that Biology teachers be provided a teacher guide to the proposed unit in Bio-mathematics as well as adequate chances to integrate content instruction activities in Mathematics and Biology.