HIERARCHICAL AND NETWORK-LIKE PRESENTATIO N OF SUBJECT-MATTER AS SUPPORT FOR ACQUIRING OF KNOWLEDGE IN SCIENCE TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL

In an experimental study in science teaching, in fourth grades, two me thods of structuring the subject-matter are compared to a control meth od. The tendencies of the results emphasize that already in fourth gra des it is possible to acquire higher-order biological end-means-knowle dge by using a hierarchical and a network-like structuring method. Aft er an analysis of the heterogeneous intra-class-regressions we could p ut together rather homogeneous subgroups, which we characterized as di fference compensating and as difference increasing class contexts. On the subgroup level, then we found partly various interaction effects.