Browsing by Author "Mantela, Fanni"

There are no comprehensive research data on Finnish matriculation examinations in biology. This type of data is needed, because evaluation guides what and how students learn and what they consider important. Genetics is one the most challenging topics in biology, and in the opinion of teachers it will continue to be an important discipline in the future. The importance of studying genetics can also be justified with philosophical, social and health reasons. This is why the present study focused on the genetics component of the matriculation exam in biology. The aim of the study was to provide information on the challenges and contents of past matriculation examinations in biology and how they have aligned with high school curricula. The results of the study could be used to evaluate this alignment in relation to genetics questions in the biology exam, and could help in designing new matriculation examinations that align better with the existing high or new high school curricula and their aims. The research questions were: 1. What knowledge and cognitive dimensions are measured with the genetics-related questions in matriculation examinations in biology? 2. How do knowledge and cognitive dimensions in genetics-related questions in biology matriculation examinations relate to high school curriculum aims? The data comprised matriculation examination papers in biology from spring 2011 to autumn 2020 (20 exams) and the aims of the Finnish national High School Curriculum in 2003 and in 2015. Qualitative content analysis was performed on the knowledge dimensions (factual, conceptual or procedural knowledge) and the cognitive process dimensions (remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating or creating). The basis of this qualitative content analysis was Bloom’s revised taxonomy. The analysis was conducted on genetics-related matriculation examination questions and on the aims of the high school curriculum. The test questions and the aims were compared to determine whether they aligned. Classified questions were divided into two subcategories depending on which high school curricula they corresponded to. Genetics-related questions from spring 2011 to autumn 2017 corresponded to the High School Curriculum in 2003 and questions from spring 2018 to autumn 2020 corresponded to the High School Curriculum in 2015. Questions from the previous period were divided into all knowledge dimensions. All questions, except one, incorporated lower cognitive dimensions (remembering, understanding and applying). The main combined class was understanding conceptual knowledge. Questions from the later time period were also divided into all knowledge dimensions. Mostly lower cognitive dimensions were incorporated into the questions, but a few subquestions addressed higher cognitive dimensions (analyzing, evaluating and creating). The main combined class was understanding conceptual knowledge. All the aims were classified into conceptual or procedural knowledge classes. The aims were also divided between all cognitive dimensions, except remembering. Using constructive alignment as the basis for matching aims with questions, two aims in the High School Curriculum of 2003 and six aims in the High School Curriculum of 2015 had no questions that matched them. These aims mostly measured the cognitive dimension of creating. Several aims appeared to incorporate higher cognitive dimensions, but the questions were less well aligned with the aims than with those incorporating lower cognitive dimensions. The results concerning knowledge and cognitive dimensions were mostly as expected. Lower cognitive dimensions were highlighted in genetics-related matriculation examination questions in biology. The challenge of interpretation brought ambiguity to the aims and cumulative levels of cognitive dimensions when aligning questions with aims, as some of the questions aligned with aims did not assess such high cognitive dimensions as would be expected based on the aims, but were nonetheless aligned with them. Furthermore, there may be several reasons behind the absence of the creating dimension in matriculation examination questions. The alignment of questions and aims would be important to consider in the future, because evaluation has a considerable impact on studying.