Wikipedia in Promoting Science Literary Skills in Primary Schools

Abstract

In learning Science, online environments allowing for user generated content are becoming increasingly important since they offer possibilities for learners to elaborate on assignments and projects. This study investigates how Wikipedia can serve as a means for enhancing science literary skills when students are encouraged to participate in constructing text using science facts and exchanging peer responses. The research focus is on exploring the consensus among Malaysian educationists and officers on the use of Wikipedia in facilitating teaching to enhance and promote interest to learn Science and to gather perceptions of student’s satisfaction in using Wikipedia to construct ideas to learn a science concept. In this study, the Fuzzy Delphi technique was used to get consensus among 20 experts who were lecturers and teachers teaching Science. The findings show that Wikipedia has the potential to be used as an instructional tool in learning Science in line with the current trends of collaboration and social networking in education. The use of Wikipedia as an alternative teaching tool had a very positive perception from students. Browsing through the Wikipedia to gather facts and generate an idea in learning a Science topic has the potential to improve both science literacy skills and thinking skills in students.