A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF PISA’S ASSESSMENT ON SCIENTIFIC LITERACY

The OECD “Programme for International Student Assessment” or (PISA) is one of the largest-scale international efforts that have been launched to assess students’ scientific literacy. Such an international assessment would likely exert a profound impact on the science education policies of the participating countries/regions, including Hong Kong. This paper sets out to examine critically how scientific literacy has been assessed by PISA through analyzing its assessment frameworks and released sample items. It was found that the PISA 2000 and 2003 assessments of science have used a narrower definition of scientific literacy, as compared to that of PISA 2006 and what scientific literacy was construed for science education. However, even PISA 2006 appears to be more valid in its assessment framework, its validity was also called into question when the sample items for the trial study were examined. Knowledge about science was found largely about the processes of science, rather than the nature of science as described in the assessment framework. Besides, it intertwined with knowledge of science in a hidden manner. The application of knowledge of science in novel, real-life situations was also jeopardized because of the issue of curricular relevance. Besides these major problems, the article has discussed the problems with the concept of scientifically investigable questions and identifying research question of an investigation. Overall, the findings raised concern over what the PISA’s measure of scientific literacy actually means.     

Preparing Computer Literate Social Workers

This paper brings together and adds to the current thinking on how to introduce microcomputer technology to MSW students and how to integrate this content with practice and research courses. A new framework suggested by the authors facilitates the integration of computer literacy training into an MSW curriculum. This framework conceptualizes computer literacy as a composite of both analytic and end-user administration, or research - each will have a different priority and emphasis. Computer literacy objectives are identified and discussed in each area of curriculum and numerous ideas and exmaples are provided that will assist schools of social work to plan their computer coursework.     

Defining and measuring literacy: Facing the reality

Increasing recognition of a broadened concept of literacy challenges policy-makers and practitioners to re-define literacy operationally, develop and apply appropriate methods of assessing literacy and consider and act upon the consequent policy implications. This task is given a new urgency by the call of the Belém Framework for Action to “recognise literacy as a continuum” in the framework of lifelong learning; and to develop “appropriate assessment methods and instruments” in surveys and collection of data. This paper reviews the evolution of the concept of literacy and the emerging new consensus about it. It examines the initial experience of the Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Programme (LAMP) of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics as a methodology in assessing literacy and the potential of “simpler” alternatives, taking the Education Watch survey in Bangladesh as an example. The policy implications for literacy programmes of the broadened definition and a new assessment approach are noted.     

From assimilation to accommodation: a developmental framework for integrating digital technologies into literacy research and instruction

This article presents a developmental framework for interpreting and understanding how new digital technologies have been integrated into literacy instruction and research, and how they might be integrated in the future. The framework borrows the concepts of assimilation and accommodation from Piaget’s classical developmental theory of learning, applying them to how individuals and groups involved in literacy instruction and research conceptualize and implement new digital technologies in their work. It is argued that assimilation and accommodation define a developmental reality that helps explain a variety of issues pertaining to new technologies in relation to literacy research and practice, such as how new technologies come to be used or not used in literacy instruction, and what research questions are asked or not asked by literacy researchers exploring the implications of new technologies for instruction. The influence of this framework on the authors’ own work and on the work of others is illustrated.     

A taxonomy and research framework for personalization in children’s literacy apps

This paper reviews the key types of personalization in children’s literacy apps to propose a taxonomy and research framework for future empirical studies Systematic content analysis was used to identify the amount and type of personalization in a hundred most popular children’s literacy apps/digital books. Titles with three and more personalization features were screened qualitatively to identify what can be personalized, how personalization occurs and who personalizes the experience. Similar themes were synthesized into a research framework that outlines how identity, self-evaluation and agency relate to personalization. The discussion sets the agenda for future research, design and evaluation of children’s digital books.     

Reading with technology: the new normal

ABSTRACT

Widespread changes in communication associated with new technologies have led to a growing interest in digital literacy. Although the concept of digital literacy suffers from a lack of agreed definition, this paper suggests that reading and writing with technology remains a key point of concern. The written word, a central feature of evolving patterns of communication, is now used in new ways and often in combination with different media as new devices and physical practices are recruited to the task of meaning making. The influence of different ways of thinking about these new communicative practices has led to the development of the diverse body of research outlined here. Tracing these strands in current research and writing about digital practice is used in order to identify how literacy has both expanded and diversified. Because it is now a significant aspect of full participation in social and cultural life, reading with technology raises important questions for education. This paper suggests that in England policy in this area is poorly articulated and argues that there is a pressing need for more focused classroom research to develop practices that support digital literacy.     

Field-based teacher education in literacy: preparing teachers in real classroom contexts

For the past two decades, scholars have advocated for reforms in teacher education that emphasize relevant connections between theory and practice in university coursework and focus on clinical experiences. This paper is based on our experiences in designing and implementing an integrated literacy methods course in a field-based teacher education program. We describe issues involved in helping preservice teachers learn to differentiate literacy instruction for diverse learners in urban schools and describe how we use Grossman’s framework of representation, decomposition, and approximation of practice to connect theory and practice. We offer insights about the importance of using recursive cycles of practice and carefully scaffolded learning through attention to different aspects of practice. Initial successes and challenges in implementing field-based literacy education are discussed.     

Measuring literacy in IALS: a construct-centered approach

This paper offers a brief overview of the framework that has been used for developing the tasks used to measure literacy in IALS as well as for understanding the meaning of what is being reported with respect to the comparative literacy proficiencies of adults. The importance of developing a framework is thought to be central in construct-based approaches to measurement. Among the things that should be included in the framework are an agreed definition of what ought to be measured and the identification of characteristics that can be used in the construction and interpretation of these tasks.     

论当代大学生的信息素质教育

本文论述了信息素质的定义及其实施信息素质教育的重要性,探讨了如何在高校培养大学生的信息素质.     

Teacher assessment literacy in practice: A reconceptualization

This paper aims to reconceptualize teacher assessment literacy (AL) by connecting two fields of research: educational assessment and teacher education. It begins with a scoping review of AL studies. By synthesizing and analyzing 100 studies on teacher AL, a new conceptual framework of teacher assessment literacy in practice (TALiP) is proposed. This framework is illustrated by a discussion of the various components of teacher AL and their interrelationships. This paper concludes with the theoretical contributions of the framework, a working definition of TALiP, and implications for policy and practice of assessment education.     

Scientific literacy for democratic decision-making

Scientifically literate citizens must be able to engage in making decisions on science-based social issues. In this paper, I start by showing examples of science curricula and policy documents that capitalise the importance of engaging future citizens in decision-making processes whether at the personal or at the societal levels. I elucidate the ideological underpinnings behind a number of the statements within those documents that have defined the trajectory of scientific literacy and have shaped what ought to be considered as personal and societal benefits. I argue that science curricula and policy documents can truly endorse scientific literacy when they embed principles of democratic education at their core. The latter entails fostering learning experiences where some of the underlying assumptions and political ideologies are brought to the conscious level and future citizens encouraged to reflect upon them critically and explicitly. Such a proposal empowers the future citizens to engage in critical deliberation on science-based social issues without taking the underlying status quo for granted. I end up the paper by situating the preparation of scientifically literate citizens within a framework of democratic education, discuss conditions through which a curriculum for scientific literacy can serve democratic decision-making processes, and provide modest recommendations.     

Who writes the recipes in science? Possibilities from four years of action research with students and their scientific literacy

This paper presents an action research study on student scientific literacy, which is analysed by two metaphors of learning, introduced by Sfard (1998), and adapted to fit the context. These metaphors are students working in science as if they follow recipes and students working in science as if they devise recipes. By looking at the relationship between the metaphors in each of four vignettes that represent the research, possibilities are considered for the usefulness of the metaphors as a framework that provides common ground for otherwise divergent views about scientific literacy. Issues of how to represent and legitimate some action research, and considerations for the need to tightly integrate reading, writing, conversing and experimenting tasks to facilitate scientific literacy are also prominent.     

Building Scientific Literacy in HIV/AIDS Education: A case study of Uganda

The term scientific literacy is defined differently in different contexts. The term literacy simply refers to the ability for one to read and write, but recent studies in language literacy have extended this definition. New literacy research seeks a redefinition in terms of how skills are used rather than how they are learned. Contemporary perspectives on literacy as a transfer of learned skills into daily life practises capture the understanding of what it means to be scientifically literate. Scientific literacy requires students to be able to use their scientific knowledge independently in the everyday world. Some models for teaching towards scientific literacy have been suggested including inquiry‐based learning embedded in constructivist epistemologies. The inquiry‐based model is posited to be effective at bringing about in‐depth understanding of scientific concepts through engaging students’ preconceptions. In order to establish whether directly engaging students’ preconceptions can lead to in‐depth understanding of the science of HIV/AIDS, a case study was designed to elucidate students’ prior knowledge. From questionnaires and classroom observations, Ugandan Grade 11 students’ persistent preconceptions were explored in follow‐up focus group discussions. The inquiry process was used to engage students with their own perceptions of HIV/AIDS during the focus group discussions. Findings suggest that students need to dialogue with each other as they reflect on their beliefs about HIV/AIDS. Dialogue enabled students to challenge their beliefs while making connections between ‘school’ and ‘home’ knowledge.     

论公民媒介素养测评框架建构

媒介素养是21世纪公民必备的素养之一,其宗旨在于培养理性的媒介公民。科学的媒介素养测评是界定、评估、推进公民媒介素养教育的重要基础和必要条件。文章聚焦公民媒介素养测评框架建构问题,运用综合性文献研究法,批判性地分析了国内外媒介素养测评框架研究现状,包括讨论了国外媒介素养测评框架建构的“能力、过程、目标”三大研究导向,归整了国内媒介素养测评指标体系、框架研究类型和群体媒介素养测评研究态势。在此基础上,文章指出,公民媒介素养测评框架建构应注重从以下五个维度展开理论建模和实证研究:认识媒介素养范式变迁的要义;理解元框架设计的意义内涵;回应全媒体时代媒介生态诉求;超越方法单一的研究偏向;凸显本土考量的文化适应性,从而构建“契合时代,立足本土,融通世界,表达中国”的公民媒介素养测评框架。这种测评框架是“元框架”意义的框架,能从根本上体现框架建构的学科性、时代性、本土性、普适性和可操作性。     

A Conceptual Framework for Emergent Digital Literacy

As we progress in the 21st century, children learn to become proficient readers and writers of both digital and non-digital texts. Knowledge, skills, and understandings of literacy emerge through sociocultural interactions with non-digital tools (e.g., paper-printed books) and digital tools (e.g., touch screen tablets). However, debate is ongoing over the role that digital experiences play in emergent literacy development. Researchers have voiced the need to conceptualise a common framework for literacy development that considers the emergence of digital literacy skills alongside conventional literacy skills and how these skills might interact during development. This is particularly important in light of the increasing use of digital texts used by young children, such as E-books and digital games. Therefore, this paper proposes a framework that might guide research and practice by examining the relationships between emergent literacy skills, emergent digital literacy skills, and proficiency in reading and writing.     

Pre-service Teachers Teaching Critical Literacy through Microteaching: Possibilities and Constraints

In this paper I explore four groups of pre-service teachers’ teaching of critical literacy in microteaching to examine how they translated critical literacy into teaching practice for secondary/upper middle grade students (the role played by peers undergoing microteaching). Firstly I discuss some key concepts and outline the pedagogical framework adopted for teaching critical literacy. I then focus on the pre-service teachers’ microteaching lessons to analyse qualitatively their lesson plans, their reflections on their teaching and the views of their peers regarding their learning of critical literacy. I conclude by assessing the possibilities and constraints of teaching critical literacy through the pedagogical framework and the microteaching context.     

Using the Digital Transmedia Magazine Project to Support Students With 21st-Century Literacies

Digital technologies have had a significant impact on how educators have come to understand and define literacy, and on the types of literacies and literacy practices that are required in the 21st century. In response, organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) have designed frameworks that attempt to articulate practices required to be literate in the 21st century. Although educators often turn to the NCTE framework to define the characteristics of a 21st-century literacies curriculum, missing from the professional literature are examples of student projects that have the potential to embody these characteristics. This article describes 1 such project, a digital transmedia magazine, in which groups of students transmediated a story or novel into a magazine using digital technologies. The article illustrates ways in which this project can be used to support students with the 6 elements of the NCTE framework.     

Using the (im)materialities framework to trace the contrapuntal lines of allegiance and belonging for globally mobile children

This paper discusses the use of Burnett, Merchant, Pahl and Rowsell’s (im)materiality literacy analysis framework to explore online and offline literacies in the lives of globally mobile children. The voices of these children have been little explored in New Literacies research. Globally mobile ‘third culture’ children who attend International Schools are often foreigners where they live, yet have multiple sites of belonging, including digital worlds. In analysing the abundant data of a year-long multicase study, the theoretical lenses of spatiality, mediation, materiality, and embodiment, as proposed in Burnett el al.’s framework, provided a productive framework through which to explore the complicated intersections of literacy, identity, and digital worlds in these children’s lives. The paper demonstrates how the framework might be applied, focusing on two of the children in the study. Prompted by insights provided by the (im)materiality framework, a contrapuntal metaphor is proposed as a way to understand allegiance and belonging in the lives of these globally mobile children.     

Literacy's verb: Exploring what literacy is and what literacy does

This article considers contemporary policy claims about “what literacy is” and “what literacy does.” First, the article reviews in-depth the ways in which development discourses define literacy, and the claims made in development discourses about the “consequences” of literacy for economic and political development. I then draw on 24 months of ethnographic research in Brazil with 41 highly impoverished literacy students from four literacy programs in two cities in order to demonstrate that there is no predictable “impact” of literacy on development. Instead, I show that the opportunities afforded by literacy depend greatly on the types of literacy and the types of literacy programs made available to students, as well as students’ cultural understandings of literacy and the social, political, and economic contexts within which they attempt to assert new literacy practices. The article concludes that we should not consider literacy as an actor with some “impact”; instead, we should examine how people use literacy in ways that are conditioned by social and cultural forces.     

浅谈学生信息素养的培养途径

在信息化社会的今天，信息素养已成为科学素养的重要构成部分。迅速地筛选和获取信息、准确地鉴别信息、创造性地加工和处理信息，将是所有社会成员应具备的技能。本文就当代学生信息素养的培养，在信息素养产生时代背景，概念的认识以及具体培养途径等方面作了必要的探讨。