Newspapers in Science Education: A Study Involving Sixth Grade Students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the learning performance of sixth grade elementary school students using newspapers in science teaching. A quasi-experimental design with a single group was used in this study. Thirty-three sixth grade elementary school students participated in this study. The research instruments consisted of three questionnaires, a "Learning Attitude toward Newspapers in Education Scale" (29 items, Cronbach's α = .90), a "Science Reading Attitude Scale" (15 items, Cronbach's α = .93), and an "Attitude toward Science Scale" (27 items, Cronbach's α = .92). All three questionnaires have good reliabilities. Furthermore, the validity of these questionnaires has been confirmed by three science educators. The results showed that the use of newspapers in education and multiple instructional strategies can (1) effectively enhance the sixth graders' learning attitudes towards the use of newspapers in science education and enhance their reading of science articles and involvement in science experiments; (2) effectively promote the sixth graders' attitudes toward science reading and enhance their science reading understanding; and (3) enhance the sixth graders' performance in scientific attitudes and significantly strengthen their science learning and interest. The research results showed that the use of newspapers in science teaching effectively enhances the science learning performance of the sixth grade students.

Newspaper Reading in Families with School-Age Children: Relationship between Parent–Child Interaction Using Newspaper, Reading Motivation, and Academic Achievement

“…There was no correlation between parent–child interaction and math, while science and English were only positively correlated with conversational mediation. Such finding is contrary to prior research that shows positive implications of newspapers in teaching mathematics, science, and English [ 5 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 13 ]. While newspaper contents raises issues and deliver real-world information, they do directly pass on knowledge.…”

“…Newspapers also have distinct physical characteristics that allow for easier handling by young children. The positive implications of newspapers have been explored until relatively recently in the education realm, including academic subjects on language arts [ 2 , 4 ], science [ 5 , 13 ], social studies [ 6 ], English [ 7 ], and math [ 8 , 9 ]. Studies continue to show how newspapers as learning tools can provide additional support for school children.…”

Enhancing Science Learning through Science Trade Book Reading for 5th Graders

“…The results of the science achievement test found that students in the experimental group had significant higher scores than students in the control group. This findings add support to the perspective that using science trade book reading into science learning can enhance students' understanding of scientific concepts (DeVore-Wedding, 2016; Guzzetti & Bang, 2011;Guzzetti & Mardis, 2017;Lai, 2008Lai, , 2012Lai & Wang, 2016;Romance & Vitale, 2012a, Vitale & Romance, 2012Werderich, 2014). With the attitudes toward science scale, although the posttest score of students in the experimental group were higher scores than students in the control group, there was no significant difference between the two groups on the outcome of the attitudes toward science scale.…”

“…Finally, students' feedbacks showed that they enjoyed and benefited from integrating science trade book reading into science learning and would like to do more science trade book reading. These feedbacks also support that frequent reading of science trade books can help children engage science learning and develop their interest (Adams & Phillips, 2016;Davis & Krajcik, 2005;Lai, 2012;Lai & Wang, 2016;Mantzicopoulos & Patrick, 2011;Romance & Vitale, 2012a). Therefore, it can be conclude that integrating science trade book reading into science learning is beneficial for 5 th graders.…”

“…Recently, much attention has been given to reading activities in Taiwan, leading many primary and secondary school science teachers to integrate science history, science reading materials, and/or science reading and writing strategies into science teaching. Lai and Wang (2016) found that incorporating these measures into science teaching did improve students' science learning performance. Therefore, this study is trying to explore the learning outcome of integrating science trade book reading into the science learning of 5 th graders.…”