Enhancing Higher Order Thinking Skills In A Marine Biology .
Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary ResearchP-ISSN 2350-7756 E-ISSN 2350-8442 www.apjmr.com Volume 2, No. 5, October 2014Enhancing Higher Order Thinking Skills in a Marine Biology Classthrough Problem-Based LearningRICHARD M. MAGSINOBiology Department, College of Education Arts and Sciences,De La Salle Lipa, Lipa City, Batangas, PHILIPPINESrichard.magsino@dlsl.edu.phDate Received: July 15, 2014; Date Revised: August 15, 2014Abstract - The purpose of this research was to examine students' perspectives of their learning in marinebiology in the collaborative group context of Problem-based Learning (PBL). Students’ higher orderthinking skills (HOTS) using PBL involves the development of their logical thinking and reasoning abilitieswhich stimulates their curiosity and associative thinking. This study aimed to investigate how criticalthinking skills, particularly analysis, synthesis and evaluation were enhanced in a marine biology classthrough PBL. Qualitative research approach was used to examine student responses in a questionnaireinvolving 10 open-ended questions that target students’ HOTS on a problem presented in a marine biologyclass for BS Biology students. Using axial coding as a qualitative data analysis technique by which groundedtheory can be performed, the study was able to determine how students manifest their higher reasoningabilities when confronted with a marine biology situation. Results show student responses yieldingaffirmative remarks on the 10 questions intended to know their level of analysis (e.g., analyzing, classifying,inferring, discriminating and relating or connecting), synthesis (e.g., synthesizing and collaborating), andevaluation (e.g., comparing, criticizing, and convincing) of information from the presented marine biologyproblem. Consequently, students were able to effectively design experiments to address the presented issuethrough problem-based learning. Results of the study show that PBL is an efficient instructional strategyembedded within a conventional curriculum used to develop or enhance critical thinking in marine biology.Keywords – Higher Order Thinking Skills, Problem-Based Learning, Marine BiologyI. INTRODUCTIONOne of De La Salle Lipa’s expected unication, life-long learning and socialresponsibility is the development of critical thinkingamong its students. Critical thinking is thinking clearlyand rationally including the ability to engage inreflective and independent thinking. It is importantbecause it serves as real evidence of student learning inthe various subjects and discipline in an educationalinstitution. Marin and Halpern (2011) reported that it isalso building the foundation of a student’s early adultlife as he prepares to enter the world of professionaladults. Developing critical thinking is essentiallyincorporated into the various teaching-learning tasks inevery curriculum the students engage in. Thedevelopment of student’s critical thinking and higherorder thinking skills (HOTS) is considered by manyscience educators as an important educational goal forstudents (Dori et al 2003, D’ Avanzo 2003, HmeloSilver 2004). Bloom’s taxonomy of the top domains oflearning: analysis, synthesis or creation, and evaluationconstitute the higher order thinking skills. Learning andpracticing HOTS inside and outside of school will givestudents the tools that they need to understand, infer,connect, categorize, synthesize, evaluate, and apply theinformation they know to find solutions to new andexisting problems (Quitadamo and Kurtz 2007).Engaging higher order thinking among students isin turn can be enhanced or cultivated through problembased learning. Hmelo and Ferrari (1997) discussed theimportance of tutorial process in problem-basedlearning (PBL) and how it can be used to cultivatehigher order thinking skills. They further considered therole of the problem, collaboration among peers, thefacilitator role, and the importance of student reflection.1P-ISSN 2350-7756 E-ISSN 2350-8442 www.apjmr.com
Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Vol. 2, No. 5 October 2014Magsino, R.M., Enhancing Higher Order Thinking Skills in a Marine Biology Class through Problem-Based LearningZohar and Dory (2003) strongly suggested that teachersshould encourage students of all academic levels (lowand high achievers) to engage in tasks that involvehigher order thinking skills. Another longitudinal casestudy aimed at examining whether purposely teachingfor the promotion of higher order thinking skillsenhances students' critical thinking, within theframework of science education (Miri et al 2007).Tiwari et al (2006) found significant differences in thedevelopment of students' critical thinking dispositionsbetween students who undertook the PBL approach andlecture courses.Marine biology is a college undergraduate courseoffered to Biology majors of the institution. It is a 4unit lecture and lab course that deals with thecharacteristics of the marine environment and in-depthstudy of the organisms living in aquatic habitat,covering discussions on the major marine animal phyla– their behavior, physiology, reproductive strategies andecology, and marine communities: intertidal and subtidal, hard and soft substrate, estuaries, plankton, coralreef and deep sea. One topic presented and discussed tothese Biology major students is the application of thescientific method on marine biological issues andproblems. Through problem-based learning as aninstructional strategy, the present work studiedresponses of students who are expected to come up withan experimental research design addressing a specificmarine biological issue presented in the class.The Problem-based Learning (PBL) Seven Stepdeveloped in the University of Maastricht, TheNetherlands (in De Graaf & Kolmos, 2003) was themain learning framework used.This frameworkincludes two learning sessions (1 and 2) with anintersession (Step 6. Self-study). Session 1 includes fivesteps: 1. Clarifying concepts, 2. Defining the problem,3. Analyzing the problem – brainstorming, 4. Organizefacts and knowledge, and 5. Formulate learningobjectives. Session 2, on the other hand includes Step 7.Discussion. The instrument was then administered tothe participants after the problem-based learning andgroup presentation sessions.Responses were subjected to content analysis withaxial coding approach to explore the narrative themeson students’ experiences and perspective of their criticalthinking on the problem presented. This was also doneto summarize the students’ main ideas and to makevalid inferences from the connections among criticalthinking and problem-solving skills using higher orderthinking. Axial coding was used in the descriptiveanalysis where an axis or central character orphenomenon was identified. Different dimensionsaround this axis were then extracted from the studentresponses: condition, context, interactional strategiesand consequences. No statistical treatment of data wasperformed since the present study utilized thequalitative research approach.III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONII. METHODSQualitative data collection method was adopted inthe present study. An open-ended questionnaireconsisting of ten questions were answered by sixteenBS Biology students enrolled in Marine Biology courseduring the 1st Semester SY 2014-2015. Prior to thestudy, the students were given a review lesson on thescientific method and its applications in marine biologyproblem solving. The participants were then groupedinto four groups with four members each. They werepresented with a marine biological problem and throughcollaborative group work they were tasked to discussand come up with experimental designs that would suitto solve the given problem. The problem states:“Imagine you are a marine biologist and you noticethat a certain type of crab tends to be larger in a localbay than in the waters outside the bay. What hypothesesmight account for this difference? How would you goabout testing these hypotheses?”(Hubert & Castro,2013)On the analysis domain (e.g., analyzing,classifying, inferring, discriminating and relating orconnecting). Analytical reasoning skills enable peopleto identify assumptions, reasons and claims, and toexamine how they interact in the formation ofarguments. Based on findings, students analyzed themarine biological issue presented in the class.Specifically, they were able to classify the dependentand independent variables, formulated a problemrelated inference, discriminated between experimentaldesigns and related or connected the marine biologicalissue to real-life situations. Students’ higher orderthinking skills, in particular with the analysis domain,were clearly seen based from the experiences obtained.To illustrate, students are in unison that analysis ―leadsto good understanding of the situation‖, ―formulation ofa problem‖, and ―enables performing the steps in thescientific method efficiently‖, which ultimately ―leads tothe possible answer or solutions to the case or issue‖.Results reveal students’ critical analysis experiences2P-ISSN 2350-7756 E-ISSN 2350-8442 www.apjmr.com
Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Vol. 2, No. 5 October 2014Magsino, R.M., Enhancing Higher Order Thinking Skills in a Marine Biology Class through Problem-Based Learningranged from ―sharing, plotting and imagining ideasrelated to the problem‖ to ―examination of detailsrelating it to prior knowledge gained through the yearsas Biology students‖.Some students also did―necessary observation, identification of causes,application of knowledge from past journal articlereadings and designing of experiments to address theproblem‖. Results will suggest that students with stronganalytical skills attend to patterns and to details, able toidentify the elements of a situation and determine howthose parts interact.On the other hand, students were able to classify theindependent and dependent variables primarily ―to havefocus on the main problem and not be confused on thevarious factors presented‖ and ―to further understandthe nature of a biological problem or issue”. Studentsdid this on purpose to ―help [us] choose whichconditions manipulate the change/s occurring in theexperimental subject‖, ―help in generating ahypothesis‖ and ―to be able to know their relationship,by what is to be expected given that they are interactingwith one another‖. A student is aware that classifyingboth variables helps ―to determine which [of thevariable] is being changed or manipulated in theexperiment and the affected variables‖ As a result,students hypothesized that ―crabs in the local bay arelarger in size than those found in the open oceans‖ dueto certain local environmental impacts, leading them todesign varied experiments to test their hypotheses.Students’ critical analysis on variable classification andinference formulation lead to expected outcomes, i.e.,they reported that ―the dependent variable is the crabsize, since it is being affected by the independentvariable which is the environmental conditions‖. Theseconditions can include food items, physical-chemicalproperties of water, nutrient levels, population size,predation and competition, and gender-size correlationvariation, as can be seen in the results.Critical analysis of a biological problem is a prerequisite before self-learning can occur. D’Avanzo(2003) suggested that this mental exercise is an exampleof metacognition, which is a problem-solving skill orstrategy students use to monitor their learning andcontrol their attention. In the study, students used theirmetacognitive skills to summarize main points, analyzethe meaning and implications of a text, and recognizewhen they fail to comprehend an idea. Students are onein saying that formulation of scientific inference isimportant ―to know both dependent and independentvariables, and to fully analyze the marine biologicalissue‖ and ―to think of more valid experiments based onfacts that [we] already know and what the results willbecome‖. According to a student, ―educated guesses aredone in order to prove something or to make morescientific researches that may contribute to thedevelopment of the scientific society‖. Metacognitionhas been described as knowing what is known and notknown, using self-teaching skills, and employingstudent-centered as opposed to teacher-centeredlearning (Bransford et al. 1999 in D’Avanzo, 2003).On the synthesis domain (e.g., synthesize andcollaborate).Student skills in synthesizing informationenable one to draw conclusions from reasons andevidence. Inference skills indicate the necessary or thevery probable consequences of a given set of facts andconditions. The study shows that students synthesizedthe details of the given marine biological issue/problem.According to one student, “synthesizing details wasdone by identifying the problem, observation, andexperimentation, leading to different approaches thatcan be done to yield results”. Synthesizing details in amore substantive way is aimed to ―know the differentfactors that influence a specific marine biologicalissue”, “to have organized and detailed pointsregarding the issue”, and ―to educate students on howto improve their abilities to make more acquiredprocedures for the experiment‖.The students were able to do this collaborativelywithin the group ―by sharing ideas and prior knowledgeto each other” and “by making it detail by detail tocome up with a convincing experiment and a goodconclusion‖. Moreover, students specifically “didsharing to the group prior knowledge about crabs, siteor location, and the issue itself, leading to its possiblesolutions” and “by thinking of the possible changes thatcould happen to each variable when one ismanipulated”. As a result, students were able ―tohypothesize on the different factors that affect crab’slife, growth and survival”; “able to devise andexperimental set-up to address the problem and wereable to identify bo
Biology Department, College of Education Arts and Sciences, De La Salle Lipa, Lipa City, Batangas, PHILIPPINES richard.magsino@dlsl.edu.ph Date Received: July 15, 2014; Date Revised: August 15, 2014 Abstract - The purpose of this research was to examine students' perspectives of their learning in marine
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