Preservice teachers’ ideas about how to enhance pupils’ long-term interest in science

Background: The four-phase model of interest development is a widely accepted theoretical perspective on the development of long-term interest. Our future teachers will be faced with the task of developing their students’ long-term interest in science. Yet it is not known whether they have workable ideas for how to achieve this.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify preservice teachers’ ideas about how to increase students’ long-term interest in science.

Sample: The participants were 235 preservice primary teachers and 33 preservice secondary science teachers.

Design and Methods: Data collection was by questionnaire, interview and classroom observations.

Results: It was found that participants in both primary and secondary groups had very similar ideas about how to develop pupils’ long-term interest in science. These ideas mainly involved the use of hands-on activities, making science relevant, and using student-centred strategies or electronic media to make lessons fun and to enhance engagement. These can be interpreted as representing sources of situational interest (i.e. short-term interest arousal). These ideas broadly parallel the current theory on interest development, such that long-term individual interest is thought to develop from repeated experiences of short-term, situational interest.

Conclusion: The participants’ ideas in this study were intuitive, because they were not derived from an understanding of theory, but rather from their personal experiences of interest arousal at university, school and practicum. Nevertheless, their ideas were workable for a practitioner, because they broadly paralleled current theory on interest development.     

The importance of supporting technological knowledge in post-primary education: a cohort study

Background: Substantial research highlights the differences between scientific and technological knowledge. Considering that learning is heavily focused on the acquisition of knowledge, it is important to examine the individual and systematic implications of these types of knowledge.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact on overall educational performance as a result of engaging with technology subjects at post-primary level.

Sample: A five year cohort study was designed to gather longitudinal data from a total sample of 1761 pupils’ grades from the Irish Leaving Certificate examination. The sample was distributed across four schools.

Design and methods: Grades from the Irish Leaving Certificate were selected because the examination is considered high stakes as it serves as the country’s primary mechanism for matriculation into third-level education. Individual examinations are designed externally to schools by a government body ensuring the validity of each examination in capturing the holistic interpretation subject syllabi. Finally, a points system is used to score each examination facilitating comparisons between subjects.

Results: The results show that pupils who study the technology subjects are statistically significantly less likely to perform well overall in comparison to pupils who study science and mathematics subjects. They also show that for pupils who study the technology subjects, those subjects are statistically significantly likely to be their best performing subjects.

Conclusions: Due to the array of variables impacting subject selection, a definitive causal explanation cannot be deduced from the data for these results. However, it is possible to infer that the variance in knowledge types between the science and technology subjects has an impact on the results. A case is made that a compulsory technological component should be incorporated into educational curricula to provide a comprehensive and general education and to facilitate the holistic development of pupils.     

Using and rejecting peer feedback in the science classroom: a study of students’ negotiations on how to use peer feedback when designing experiments

Background: Research on peer assessment has noted ambiguity among students in using peer assessment for improving their work. Previous research has explained this in terms of deficits in the student feedback, or differences in student views of what counts as high-quality work.

Purpose: This study frames peer assessment as a social process in the science classroom. The aim is to explore peer assessment in science education as social practice in order to contribute to an understanding of the affordances and constraints of using peer assessment as a learning tool in science education.

Design and Method: The study was conducted in four lower secondary school classes, school years 8 and 9, in two different schools. An intervention study was designed focussing on the topic of experimental design. It involved the students in a process of peer assessment where they designed experiments individually, and then exchanged their designs, conducted each other’s experiments, provided feedback to each other and revised their original design after discussing the feedback in groups. Data were collected in the form of audio recordings of student discussions and written work.

Results: The results show that, although not all peer feedback resulted in revisions, peer feedback was useful to the students in group interaction when negotiating quality in their work.

Conclusions: To conclude, the potential for using peer assessment in science education should not only be evaluated through the students’ revisions but also in terms of in what ways the feedback constitutes interactional resources for defining quality in student work.     

The Accomplishment of Divergence

The situated development of South Asian communities in the UK has led to the growth of a number of schools in which ‘ethnic minority’ pupils form a majority. Such a situation throws into higher relief issues and concerns surrounding cultural transmission and encounter, and communicative competence.

This paper recounts some of the principal findings of research in which the teaching staff of a large 9‐13 middle school were interviewed individually regarding their perceptions of their South Asian pupils. The school has an almost wholly South Asian intake and is situated near the centre of a large northern city.

The teachers’ markedly deficit view of their charges is detailed and this is followed by an explanation of their constructions in microsociological terms. A model is presented which clarifies the processes by which close intercultural interaction seem to accomplish worlds as divergent.

The author teaches children with special educational needs at the school in which the study was undertaken.     

Characteristics of effective leadership networks: a replication and extension

Purpose: Replicating and extending earlier research, this mixed-methods study inquired about the characteristics of effective school leadership networks and the contribution of such networks to the development of individual and collective leaders’ professional capacities.

Design: The study used path analytic techniques with survey data provided by 283 school and district leaders to test a path model of effective network characteristics. Interview data were provided by 23 school leaders. Variables in the model included Network leadership, structure, health, connectivity, and outcomes.

Findings: Results confirmed that the model was a very good fit with the data and, as a whole, explained 51% of the variation in network outcomes. Network leadership had the largest total effect on network outcomes, followed closely by the effects of Network Health and Network Connectivity. Interview data confirmed the nature of variables measured by the survey and added additional features for future research. Most results replicated the previous study.

Research Limitation: The study was limited to leadership networks intentionally organised within districts, not networks organised by school leaders themselves or networks arising spontaneously by their members. Results cannot be generalised to other types of networks.

Practical implication: In addition to a focus on single unit leadership development in districts, systematic initiatives should be designed to help prepare network leaders to foster the forms of collaboration that are so central to professional capacity development.

Originality: Results of the study offer explicit guidance to network leaders about how to improve the contribution of network participation to their colleagues’ capacities; it is one of a very small number studies in educational contexts to provide such guidance.     

Exploring the structure of science learning self-efficacy: the role of science learning hardiness and perceived responses to capitalization attempts among Taiwanese junior high school students

Background: Despite the growing body of research on self-efficacy, previous studies have failed to clarify exactly how it is constructed. Meanwhile, the literature indicates that, in Taiwan, junior high school students tend to show lower self-efficacy in learning science compared with elementary and senior high school students.

Purpose: This study aimed to develop a mediational model providing the factors accounting for Taiwanese junior high school adolescents’ science learning self-efficacy (SLSE), especially from the perspectives of both interpersonal and intrapersonal factors.

Design: We therefore proposed a mediational model to delineate the relationships among students’ perceived responses to capitalization attempts – science learning (PRCA-SL), science learning hardiness (SLH) and SLSE by conducting structural equation modeling (SEM).

Sample: A total of 1,170 junior high school students in Taiwan were invited to take part in the study.

Results: The results confirmed our hypothesis that students’ PRCA-SL fostered their science learning hardiness, which in turn contributed to their science learning self-efficacy.

Conclusions: The findings confirmed the mediational model wherein science learning hardiness completely mediated the relationship between PRCA-SL and science learning self-efficacy.     

Maintaining the self: meanings of material objects after a residential transition later in life

Introduction: Moving house later in life can be a major transition and valued material objects may be important to this process. The present study aimed to develop an explanatory model for the meanings of material objects to older adults in the context of a residential transition.

Method: Using grounded theory methodology, 12 participants were interviewed about the meanings and roles of valued material objects following a residential transition. Older adult participants lived in either their own home or a care home.

Results: The model entails two core categories, “threats to identity” and “objects and identity continuity” along with four explanatory concepts, “moving and identity discontinuity”, “connections across time”, “attachments to others”, and “preserving self and ancestors in the memories of the next generation”.

Discussion: Objects were described to have important personal meanings which helped people maintain a sense of identity continuity following residential transition. They were associated with comfort, security and life review processes, which support identity continuity later in life.

Conclusion: Moving house later in life can threaten a person’s sense of self. However, material objects can help maintain a sense of identity continuity through reminiscence and life review processes. Implications for community and residential care moving house transitions are discussed.     

Students’ views of uncertainty in formal and personal science

Background: Uncertainty is a crucial element of scientific knowledge growth. Students should have some understanding of how science knowledge is developed and why scientific conclusions are considered more or less certain than others. A component of the nature of science, it is considered an important aspect of science education and allows students to recognize the limitations of scientific research.

Purpose: This study examined Grades 5 and 9 students’ views of uncertainty in their personal scientific research and the formal scientific research of professionals.

Sample: This study included 33 students in Grade 5 (n = 17) and Grade 9 (n = 16). The students were recruited from a charter school that emphasised inquiry instruction.

Design and methods: Data were collected through interviews. Students were asked their views of their inquiry-based projects and their views of professional science.

Results: Interview data and statistical analyses indicated that students recognized uncertainty in personal science, which varied across elements of the scientific process. Additionally, their views of uncertainty in formal science tended to change across grades and knowledge of uncertainty in personal and formal science were positively correlated.

Conclusion: These findings offer insights into the processes by which students come to understand uncertainty in science and point to ways of fostering such knowledge through teaching practices.     

Review of measurements used in computing education research and suggestions for increasing standardization

Background and context: The variables that researchers measure and how they measure them are central in any area of research, including computing education. Which research questions can be asked and how they are answered depends on measurement.

Objective: To summarize the commonly used variables and measurements in computing education and to compare them to best practices in measurement for human-subjects research.

Method: Systematic literature review analyzing 197 papers published during 2013–2017 in computing education research venues.

Findings: The review illuminates common practices related to: variables measured (including learner characteristics), measurements used, and type of data analysis. The paper lists standardized measurements that were used and highlights commonly used variables for which no standardized measures exist.

Implications: The paper concludes with information about best practices currently being used in the community that should be continued, as well as pointing out practices that could be improved along with recommendations for how to begin to adopt those best practices.     

The Use of Correspondence Training in Improving the In‐class Behaviour of Very Troublesome Secondary School Children

Seven children were identified by staff consensus as being the most troublesome pupils in a comprehensive secondary school. A study was then conducted to examine the effects of ‘say‐do’ correspondence training in reducing the amount of troublesome behaviour engaged in by these pupils in the classroom. Such behaviour was defined as ‘talking out of turn’ and ‘hindering other children’, behaviours which had already been found to be the most common categories of troublesome behaviour for secondary classroom teachers.

A multiple baseline across subjects design was employed which brought about a reduction in these two behaviours for three girls and three boys. The behaviour of a fourth boy, however, did not improve beyond the first half of the intervention period. This outcome is discussed in terms of a general deterioration in behaviour and competing contingencies in the classroom. There was some evidence of the generalisation of effects across settings and an increase in the amount of homework submitted.

These results build upon existing research which shows that correspondence training is a useful strategy for dealing with some common classroom behaviour problems. This paper reports an extension of the application of the correspondence training procedures to secondary school pupils of both sexes and covers a broad range of academic ability.     

Exploring youth engagement in agricultural development: the case of farmers’ children in the Philippines as rice crop manager infomediaries

Purpose: This paper explores the intersections between community development and youth development in an initiative that mobilized farmers’ children as Rice Crop Manager (RCM) infomediaries (information mediators). RCM is an ICT-enabled nutrient management application.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study engaged 30 farmers’ children in high school level from the provinces of Pangasinan, Isabela, Camarines Sur, Iloilo, Bukidnon, and Davao del Norte from November 2016 to October 2017. They interacted with the research team (the authors) and the RCM-SMS platform that sends text messages regarding fertilizer recommendations. A staff member from the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) also called the students for some follow-up questions. The research team conducted three rounds of interviews with the students concerning the messages and calls that they received and what they did with the information.

Findings: This study finds that farmers’ children can perform infomediary roles quite effectively. Academically excellent children and those involved in farm work performed best.

Practical Implications: The study provides guidance on similar initiatives tapping young people in agricultural development.

Theoretical Implications: This paper finds that while Community Youth Development (CYD) Theory provides a powerful lens in understanding community and youth development intersections, some identified outcomes may overlap and may not be very easy to observe. Hence, the identified outcomes may be revisited for clarity and to make them more all-encompassing.

Originality/Value: The paper documents actual parent-child interaction when the latter is mobilized to serve as an infomediary to access nutrient management-related information on rice.     

Cognitive Style and Problem Behaviour in Boys Referred to Residential Special Schools

The paper considers aberrant behaviour in the context of cognitive style with reference to both diagnosis and treatment.

Aims.

The aims of the study were to investigate whether the style of pupils with behaviour problems was different from that of children with no reported problems, and also to consider how pupils of different style manifested their problem behaviours.

Sample.

The sample comprised 83 male pupils aged 10‐18 years from two residential special schools.

Method.

The sample were given the Cognitive Styles Analysis to assess their positions on the Wholist‐Analytic and Verbal‐Imagery style dimensions. The pupil records of the special school pupils who were at the extreme of the style dimensions were also examined.

Results.

When their style characteristics were contrasted with a Comparison Sample of 413 12‐16‐year‐old males attending 10 secondary schools, the special school pupils had a significantly higher proportion of both Wholists and Verbalisers, than the Comparison Group. Further, the inspection of the records indicated that the types of social behaviour and behaviour problems exhibited varied with style, and particularly on the Wholist‐Analytic dimension.

Conclusion.

The results were considered to have implications for the origins and treatment of problem behaviour.     

Public agricultural extension workers as boundary workers: identifying sustainability perspectives in agriculture using Q-methodology

Purpose: To provide farmers with access to salient knowledge on sustainability that could contribute positively to farmers’ livelihoods, there is a need for knowledge facilitators. This paper examines the role of public extension workers as boundary workers in Indonesia on sustainable agriculture and challenges around them.

Design/methodology/approach: To identify sustainability perspectives, this research uses Q-methodology which analyzes individual perspectives on sustainability, their differences, and similarities. This research also employs focus group discussions and interviews. In three regions in Indonesia.

Findings: Q-method resulted in two perspectives. The technologists perceive sustainable agriculture as food security and the use of organic pesticides. They also believe that the responsibility for sustainable agriculture lies with extension workers and governments. The environmentalists believe the concept of sustainability implies the active prevention of environmental degradation. They also believe that everybody should take responsibility for sustainability. The paper determines that boundary work needs highly motivated extension workers; the ability to gain trust from farmers; and government support.

Theoretical implication: This paper contributes to the literature on boundary work by connecting the concept of boundary work to agricultural extension.

Practical implication: The results may be used as inputs for Indonesian policymakers to develop a guideline on sustainable agriculture for extension workers.

Originality/value: In current studies on extension workers in developing countries, an analytical framework which employs the concept of boundary work is hardly found. Boundary work is a relevant concept to depict challenges extension workers are confronted with when brokering. Q-methodology aims to obtain individual perspective on a particular issue. This research provides insight on individual perspectives of extension workers on sustainable agriculture.     

How teaching practices are connected to student intention to enrol in upper secondary school physics courses

Background: In developed countries, it is challenging for teachers to select pedagogical practices that encourage students to enrol in science and technology courses in upper secondary school.

Purpose: Aiming to understand the enrolment dynamics, this study analyses sample-based data from Finland’s National Assessment in Science to determine whether pedagogical approaches influence student intention to enrol in upper secondary school physics courses.

Sample: This study examined a clustered sample of 2949 Finnish students in the final year of comprehensive school (15–16 years old).

Methods: Through explorative factor analysis, we extracted several variables that were expected to influence student intention to enrol in physics courses. We applied partial correlation to determine the underlying interdependencies of the variables.

Results: The analysis revealed that the main predictor of enrolment in upper secondary school physics courses is whether students feel that physics is important. Although statistically significant, partial correlations between variables were rather small. However, the analysis of partial correlations revealed that pedagogical practices influence inquiry and attitudinal factors. Pedagogical practices that emphasise science experimentation and the social construction of knowledge had the strongest influence.

Conclusions: The research implies that to increase student enrolment in physics courses, the way students interpret the subject’s importance needs to be addressed, which can be done by the pedagogical practices of discussion, teacher demonstrations, and practical work.     

Ready,steady, action: what enables young people to perceive themselves as active agents in their lives?

Government and educational priorities place importance on young people of secondary school age being active, having their voices heard, and participating in their community. This paper explores an understanding of the role of agency in young people’s lives and how the concept is developing. Young people who perceive themselves as having agency may feel they have the ability to change something about themselves or their environment for a valued goal; this may increase their resilience and adaptability to life challenges.

A systematic review of agency-related literature revealed little consistency and coherence in definitions and components of agency, particularly regarding young people. Empirical research used realist grounded theory to analyse discussion of three focus groups consisting of 11 young people aged 13 to 17 involved in active school and community projects in both rural and urban areas from a large county in the UK. Findings indicate how certain psychological factors relate over time between a young person’s thoughts and feelings, their structural context and their positive interpersonal relationships to support their sense of being an agent.

This article argues that focus on young people’s agency is a key thread linking many areas of educational practice to empower young people. Implications for practice with young people, professionals and families are discussed, including use of a schema of the findings to guide assessment and intervention.     

Can agricultural research and extension be used to challenge the processes of exclusion and marginalisation?

Purpose: This paper examines if and how agricultural researchers and extension officers can see, understand and change processes that exclude some people and influence marginalisation.

Design and methodology: We used participatory action research (PAR) in a programme building sustainable farming practices for nutrition and income in Solomon Islands as our case study. Two qualitative PAR data streams were analysed: (i) documentation of community activities over three years including action planning, learning activities, training workshops, focus group discussions, key informant and informal interviews and (ii) documentation of the research teams’ own learning and reflection sessions.

Findings: Agricultural research and learning activities facilitated through PAR can help researchers and extension officers see, understand and challenge processes that cause social exclusion and marginalisation and lead to inequitable access to agricultural opportunities. A combination of (i) starting with a collective vision; (ii) facilitating systematic reflection exercises; and (iii) having locally tuned facilitators creating safe spaces; makes processes of social exclusion tangible, discussable and ultimately actionable, illustrating the potential of the research and extension processes to facilitate social change in real time.

Theoretical Implications: The paper makes a contribution to the growing body of theory and literature on innovation systems and people-centred approaches to agricultural development, by highlighting the facilitation challenges and opportunities that can create more learning focused and power-aware agricultural programming.

Practical Implications: Our approach, examined in this paper, can improve implementation of policies such as the Solomon Islands Agriculture and Livestock Sector Policy (2015–2019), which aims for active participation of women and youth in agricultural development.

Originality: Using a PAR approach to discover how agricultural research and extension activities can help transform the processes that cause social exclusion and create disadvantage and marginalisation.