The effectiveness of White and Gunstone strategy (PEOE) in teaching biology on developing biological concepts and scientific curiosity of secondary stage students with different learning styles

The study aimed at exploring the effectiveness of White and Gunstone strategy (PEOE) in teaching biology on developing biological concepts and scientific curiosity of secondary stage students with different learning styles in Taif city. The study sample consisted of (60) first grade secondary stage students who were randomly selected and divided into two groups: a control group which studied biology using the usual method, and an experimental group which studied the same content using the strategy of White and Gunstone (PEOE). Three tools were implemented after verifying their validity and reliability: a test for biological concepts, the scientific curiosity scale and the Learning Patterns Scale (VARK).
The results showed that there were statistically significant differences at (α ≤ 0.05) between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups in both biological concept test and scientific curiosity scale in favor of the experimental group students who studied using the strategy of White and Gunstone (PEOE) with a high impact size,  whereas there were no statistically significant differences due to  the interaction between teaching strategy and learning style in their performance on the two study tools.
In the light of the results of the study, a number of recommendations were set including the adoption of (PEOE) strategy, training science teachers in general and biology teachers in particular to use (PEOE) in teaching, reorganizing the content of science textbooks and formulating them in line with (PEOE) strategy, and finally the adoption of scientific curiosity as teaching objectives in the secondary stage and organizing the content accordingly.