科學所探討的事物很多是感官碰觸不到的,因此除了用已經知道的事物類推之外,沒有其它的方法能去想像或描述。近年認知心理學逐漸重視「隱喻」在人類心智上的作用,認為隱喻以熟悉的事物來認識或說明另一不熟悉事物的方法,是一種思想概念傳達的模式,在科學觀念的形成與演變上佔有重要的地位。 本研究以現行國中三年級理化課程中的「電解質」單元為例,發展適當的「隱喻課文」,並透過實驗與問卷等方式,探討以學生所熟悉之事物為隱喻的「隱喻課文」,對學生閱讀理解科學課文的影響。目前社會對於科學教學的看法過於重視「做中學」,但是很多研究都指出閱讀教科書才是學生學習科學知識的主要途徑。因此,希望研究能找出隱喻用於科學課文能增進學生學習的成效,俾能在科學教育上有所貢獻。 以國中二年級已經學習過「原子結構」單元的學生為研究對象。學生於閱讀學習之前先接受前測,而於後測的過程當中則以隨機分派的方式將學生分為實驗組與控制組,分別閱讀隱喻課文與傳統課文,然後再實施後測及延宕測驗。結果發現:(1)閱讀隱喻課文的學生在學習後的保留上,顯著的優於閱讀傳統課文的學生;(2)實驗組低先前知識的學生在學習後的保留以及對於課文邏輯關係的理解顯著的高於控制組低先前知識的學生(3)實驗組高先前知識的學生及對於課文邏輯關係的理解顯著的高於控制組低先前知識的學生。 問卷調查現職的國中理化教師及高一的學生對隱喻使用的評價。發現在科學課程當中,隱喻的使用非常豐富,不只是教師教學,也是教師本身和學生學習相關領域知識時常用的思考工具。擬人化的隱喻貼近學生的日常生活,因而提高了學生的學習動機。但是用喻隱喻撰寫課文時,亦須注意其所隱含之文化意涵與避免造成課文冗長的限制。 根據上述研究的結果,本研究建議編寫教科書時,於介紹抽象與難懂的概念上多使用學生熟悉的事物為隱喻,以幫助學生的閱讀課文時的理解。
What science tends to discover is usually something that cannot be sensed by human sensory organs. People can make use of what they have already known to new things by making analogies. Besides, there is, probably no other ways to imagine or describe. In these recent years, cognitive psychology has gradually to pay more attention to the effects of what metaphors do to human intelligence. It thinks that metaphor is a technique of getting to know or introducing something new through something was known. It is a mode of conception transition, and this plays a very important role on forming and developing scientific thinking. Current standpoint to science education overemphasizes “Learning form the process of doing.” This is contrary to many research results, which show that studying textbooks is the principal channel for students to gain science knowledge. Thus, in this research, based on a unit from current junior high school physics-chemistry textbook,“ Electrolyte” (9th grade), with the tools of well-developed metaphorical text along with experiments and questionnaires. This research is trying to find out the influence of students’ understanding when they learn from some metaphorical texts. This means to show that applying metaphors in writing science textbooks can improve students’ learning effects. Eight grade students participated in this study, they had learned the unit of “Atomic Structure.” These students took pre-test before reading study. And was assigned randomly into experimental group and contrast group for post-test. They study metaphorical and traditional texts respectively groups. Then took the post-test and delayed recall test. The results are: (1)the group who studied metaphorical texts are significantly better the group who studied traditional texts in the way of memory reserve.(2)Experimental group with low prior knowledge has better results than contrast group with low prior knowledge in the area of retention of text content and understanding texts logic relations.(3)Experimental group with high prior knowledge has significant better grades on understanding texts logic than contrast group with high prior knowledge. From the survey through questionnaires among junior high physics-chemistry teachers and senior high first-year students, the results show that metaphors are applying generally in science lessons. Metaphors are not only used in teaching but also the tools when teachers and students are learning knowledge in relative fields. Personification metaphors close to students’ daily life thus, raise their learning motivation. But there are also restrictions, it must be very careful when applying metaphors in written texts so no excessive culture meanings or descriptions will appear. According to all the above research results, this study recommends to use more well known metaphors while editing science textbooks in the reducing of students’ comprehension difficulties.