High school students' perception about the usefullness of interactive board during biology lessons

Abstract

The needs of the 21st century’s alpha generation students can be supported by ICT mediated educational methods. Interactive board is one of the key tools in this process. Today, in many schools in Hungary, teachers have the opportunity to support the teaching-learning environment with the methodological additions provided by interactive boards. The aim of the present study was to observe high school students’ opinion about the usefullness of interactive board during biology lessons depending on their attitude towards ICT learning uses. Interactive boards are considered to be one of the most dominant tools for education, and it plays a pivotal role in the development of ICT competence of future teachers (Kelemen, 2008). With the help of a software, interactive board is conneced to a computer.  The touch screen allows the users to fully control it. The contents of the board can be saved and the projected materials can be supplemented (Füvesi, 2008). In the present study, 71 high school student responded to an  anonymous questionnaire. Before the questionnaires were filled in, students studied biology with interactive board support twice a week for 7 months. Data were analyzed statistically, correlation tests, linear regression, mediation and moderation tests were performed. Based on our results, there are positive correlations between the perception of the usefulness of interactive board in biology lessons and the didactic support, cognitive support 1 and social support 2 components. Social 2 support is overalaping with cognitive 1 and didactic support, but there is no clear hierarchical relationship between social support 2, didactic support and cognitive support 1. Mechanical and social learning styles influence the perception of the usefullness of interactive boards and the relationship with didactic support.