Students’ Perceptions Toward Bilingual Education at Icp Chemistry Education in Makassar

This study aims to find out: (1) students’ perceptions toward bilingual education in ICP (International Class Program) toward the use of two languages of instructions (English and Indonesian) by the lecturer in classroom. (2) to investigate its benefit for students in ICP chemistry education. The researcher adopted a descriptive qualitative research with a case study method. To gain the data, the researcher employed questionnaire with the students. The subjects in this study were 24 of students sixth semester belong to the International Class Program (ICP) chemistry education in State University of Makassar. The results of this study showed that there were the bilingual education helps the students to gain control their English skill. It showed that students’ positive perceptions toward the use of bilingual language as language instruction in the classroom by the lecturer. It is concluded that teaching chemistry in English facilitates the learners’ attempt in learning English.

Secondary School Teachers Conceptual Understanding About Selected Concepts of Genetics: An Exploratory Study from Baltistan

Genetics is a subject that many learners and teachers find difficult to learn and teach respectively. This cross-sectional survey study was carried out to investigate secondary school biology teachers’ conceptual understanding about the selected concepts of genetics including: Cell Division, Fertilization and Reproduction and Cells followed by comparison in teachers’ conceptual understanding across school system in Baltistan. Another aim was to identify the most difficult questions in the Genetic Conception Assessment (GCA) to indicate the difficulties in the particular concepts of genetics. GCA tool had adapted from a previous study and found to be reliable (α=0.84) and also validated through content and methodological reviewers. GCA was piloted before administration to compute contextual relevancy, difficulty index and discrimination index. GCA was directly administered to 130 participants/science teachers randomly recruited from government (n=67) and private (n=63) schools. Results demonstrated that teachers scored 65% of the total score exhibiting above average conceptual understanding. On average, private school teachers have exhibited a better conceptual understanding (M=70, SE=1.60) than their counterparts (M=60, SE=2.11) in government schools (p<0.001; r=0.32). Results followed a similar pattern for the three domains in GCA. However, the difference was found to be significant only on domain ‘fertilization and reproduction’ (p< 0.001; r = 0.38). Of the 33 items, six items (18%) were identified as the most difficult items (score <29%). Findings revealed that teachers’ exhibited better understanding of concepts: site of meiosis in human-body and chromosome numbers in egg, sperm and fertilized egg. It was also found that teachers possessed misconceptions about basics of mitosis and meiosis with inadequate understanding of reproduction concept. Furthermore, teachers found it difficult to reason well in an explicit way. This study provides significant insight into the under-researched area in Pakistani context to inform policy, practice and further research. Keeping the results in view, professional development courses in developing conceptual understanding of teachers could be emphasized. The findings of this study make a valuable contribution to indigenous literature.