Students' understanding of concepts related to plant growth

This paper reports on an investigation into students' understanding of the concept of plant growth. There are three aspects to the research. First, responses of Australian primary students to questions concerning plant growth are compared with those identified in British research (Russell & Watt, 1990). Second, the answers of secondary students, Year 7-Year 12, to questions concerning plant growth were analysed and common categories of responses were identified. Finally, the response categories were considered within the framework offered by the SOLO Taxonomy of Biggs and Collis (1982, 1991). In particular, interest was focused on whether the findings of an earlier study (Levins, 1992) in which cycles of development in the understandings of the concept of evaporation were established, might be observed in the concept of plant growth. Specializations secondary science curriculum, biology and chemistry teacher education. Specializations secondary mathematics curriculum topics, the SOLO Taxonomy, student cognitive growth.     

The articulation of the development of teacher knowledge during the implementation of new teaching procedures to enhance student understanding of molecular biological concepts

This paper is based on the first author’s extensive examination of her teaching and her students’ learning in a senior high school Biology classroom at a coeducational K-12 independent college in Victoria, Australia, over a five-year period. Research was guided by the following questions: (1) How can students become more aware of the specific biological terminology that they will need to use to communicate their understanding of biological concepts? (2) How can student familiarity with new biological terminology be enhanced? (3) Which teaching strategies might be most effective across the diverse range of abilities and learning styles within a senior Biology classroom? Three key data-sets ([1] Development of specific teaching procedures; [2] Student responses to using the teaching procedures; [3] Teacher journal entries and reflections) were analysed supported by Korthagen’s ALACT model. Findings support the notion that genuine educational change is linked to teacher change, driven by teachers themselves, drawing new insights into students’ learning.     

Parental guidance in preschoolers' understanding of spatial-graphic representations

This research was designed to observe whether parents guide their children's understanding of spatial-graphic representations and, if so, to describe the quality of the strategies they use. Parents read a picture book to their preschoolers (3 or 5 years, N=31) and children completed spatial-graphic comprehension tasks. Observational data revealed a range of creative behaviors used to address the book's spatial-graphic challenges. The incidence and quality of parental spatial-graphic behaviors were significantly related to 5-year-old children's performance on spatial-graphic measures. These findings, as well as the paucity of parent attention to aesthetics or graphic production techniques, are discussed in relation to representational development and educational practice.     

Environmental Thinking in the Early Years: understanding and misunderstanding of concepts related to waste management

This paper provides an overview and discussion of a study of young children's knowledge and understanding of the management of waste materials. It describes a semi‐structured interview and discussion methodology used to ascertain details of children's knowledge and misconceptions about this key environmental issue. Interviews described are with 4 and 6‐year‐old children. The paper presents examples of data recording and analysis, and raises important implications of findings for teachers of children in their first 3 years in school. The study described forms a part of a larger international research project which focuses on acquisition of environmental subject knowledge and development of concern for the environment.     

Understanding number sequences leads to understanding mathematics concepts

Ninety-six first grade students in an urban school system were tested in October and May on reading, mathematics, and their understanding of sequences of letters and numbers. A time lag analysis was subsequently conducted. In such analyses, cross-correlations between the first measurement of one variable and the second measurement of another are compared. The larger of the correlations indicates the direction of the relationship; i.e., which variable is most likely to be causal. Correlations of the fall scores on the number sequences with spring scores on the mathematics concepts scale were significant, while correlations of the fall mathematics concepts scores with spring number sequence scores were negligible. This indicates that understanding such complex sequences has a directional effect on understanding mathematics concepts. Fall–spring cross-correlations for the letter sequences and reading test, although significant, did not differ, and hence provided no indication of the direction of the relationship. Potential explanations were discussed.     

Techniques for investigating the understanding of concepts in science

Starting from a theoretical model of concept development, three diagnostic techniques for investigating a pupil's understanding of selected concepts in science are described.

The first, and most basic technique involves the selection of specific ‘instances’ of each named concept from a 5 × 5 grid of numbered boxes. The second involves the gradual ‘homing‐in’ on the selected concept from a number of ‘clues’, presented one at a time. To start with, the ‘clues’ are not specific to one particular concept, but, as more ‘clues’ are provided, the selected concepts can be uniquely determined. The third, and most comprehensive technique involves the application of concepts to ‘problem solving’. Given a standard problem, the pupil selects, from a 3 × 4 grid of concept statements, those which are relevant to the given problem. The chosen statements are then arranged by the pupil in the order required to solve the given problem.     

Exploring children's understanding of death concepts

This study is an investigation of the effects of death education on children and their understanding of death. The participants of this study were eighty 5- and 6-year-olds who were enrolled in a suburban kindergarten in Korea. To examine the level of children's understanding of death, researchers interviewed each child in both the control and experimental groups. After the interview, researchers provided an intervention (11 educational activities) to the experimental group. No educational intervention was provided to the control group. Researchers re-interviewed children in both groups after the treatment. The overall mean score of the experimental group was significantly higher than that of the control group on all five categories of the death concept: causality, old age, irreversibility, finality, and inevitability. Implications regarding how death education can be approached in early childhood settings are also discussed.     

Korean preschoolers' advanced inhibitory control and its relation to other executive skills and mental state understanding

This study assessed executive function and mental state understanding in Korean preschoolers. In Experiment 1, forty 3.5- and 4-year-old Koreans showed ceiling performance on inhibition and switching measures, although their performance on working memory and false belief was comparable to that of Western children. Experiment 2 revealed a similar advantage in a sample of seventy-six 3- and 4-year-old Koreans compared with sixty-four age-matched British children. Korean children younger than 3.5 years of age showed ceiling effects on some inhibition measures despite more stringent protocols and the link between executive function and mental state understanding was not as strong as in the British sample. The results raise key questions about the nature and development of the executive system and its relation to social understanding.     

Education for international understanding in Japanese schools

Japan is in a unique position regarding the question of education for international understanding: it participated actively in the Second World War, which is lost through the tragic events of which we are all aware. This dual heritage, from the war and then the post-war period, is clear in the two following articles which describe from very different viewpoints the role of eduction for international understanding in the national context. Reading them, in either order, should in our point of view not so much open a debate (who is against peace?) as on the contrary, stimulate thought on future action. The first article describes the evolution and current status of education for international understanding within the official school system. The second, theoretical, puts forth the point of view of those who work within the peace movement in Japan and who feel something more and different is needed from the formal school system. Such contrast, even tension, between two attitudes equally but differently aiming towards the same goal, is an excellent illustration of the fact that even though education for international understanding and peace, through its efforts, its successer or its inadequacies, is more than ever a question of foremost importance, it is one that no educational system can pretend to have definitively settled.     

Use of a computer simulation to develop mental simulations for understanding relative motion concepts

Think aloud interview protocols from three high school post-physics students who interacted with a relative motion computer simulation presented in a predict-observe-explain format are analysed. Evidence is presented for: qualitative and quantitative difficulties with apparently simple one-dimensional relative motion problems; students' spontaneous visualization of relative motion problems; the visualizations facilitating solution of these problems; and students' memory of the on-line simulation used as a framework for visualization of post-test problems solved off-line. Instances of successful and unsuccessful mapping of remembered simulation features onto target problems are presented. Evidence from hand motions and other indicators suggesting that the subjects were using dynamic imagery in mental simulations during the treatment and post-test is presented. On the basis of these observations, it is hypothesized that for successful students, dissonance between their incorrect predictions and simulations displayed by the computer initiated the construction of new ways of thinking about relative motion, and that the memory of certain simulations acted as an analogue 'framework for visualization' of target problems solved off-line after the intervention. In such cases we find that interaction with a computer simulation on-line can facilitate a student's appropriate mental simulations off-line in related target problems. Implications for design and use of educational computer simulations are discussed.     

A comparison of level of understanding of eighth‐grade students and science student teachers related to selected chemistry concepts

The aim of this study is to investigate and compare level of understanding of eighth‐grade students and student teachers in their final year in the science education department related to concepts of solution, gas, and chemical change. A qualitative and quantitative methodology was used for this investigation. Open‐ended questions and group discussion methods were used for data collection. Moreover, to examine how students visualize these concepts, students were asked to make drawings. The questions were administered to 50 students in Grade 8 and 50 student teachers in the science education department. Group discussions were conducted with 6 students and 6 student teachers. There were surprisingly similar alternative conceptions by both the students and the student teachers despite more instruction on these topics in the education of the student teachers. Based on the results, some suggestions are presented. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach     

把握核心概念 提高教学有效性

围绕生物学教学中的核心概念,从界定到实施概念教学,再到巩固提高,分别以具体的教学实例加以解释说明,旨在通过促进三维教学目标中＂知识＂目标的落实,提高教学的有效性。     

Conceptual understanding of acids and bases concepts and motivation to learn chemistry

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of 5E learning cycle model oriented instruction (LCMI) on 11th-grade students' conceptual understanding of acids and bases concepts and student motivation to learn chemistry. The study, which lasted for 7 weeks, involved two groups: An experimental group (LCMI) and a control group (the traditional teacher-centered instruction [TTCI]). Based on multivariate analysis of covariance results, the LCMI students outperformed the TTCI students in terms of conceptual understanding about acids and bases. Similarly, the students from the experimental group scored higher motivation and this difference was found to be statistically significant. These findings demonstrated that instruction based on learning cycle model provide students a deeper conceptual understanding, foster high-order thinking, engage them in the learning process, and influence their motivation to learn by increasing the relevance of school chemistry to their daily lives.     

生物学概念的教学策略探析

概念是客观事物本质属性在人脑中的反映，是一种理性认识，人们正是依赖概念的这种性质而展开思维和行动的。从一定意义上说，学生学习知识主要是掌握概念和由概念组成的系统。学生技能的形成是以掌握概念和规则为基础的，规则中包含了概念，一条规则总是由若干概念通过一定关系构成的。生物学概念是中学生物学科知识的重要组成部分，     

Executive functioning and preschoolers' understanding of false beliefs, false photographs, and false signs

Two studies were conducted to investigate the specificity of the relationship between preschoolers' emerging executive functioning skills and false belief understanding. Study 1 ( N =44) showed that 3- to 5-year-olds' performance on an executive functioning task that required selective suppression of actions predicted performance on false belief tasks, but not on false photograph tasks. Study 2 ( N =54) replicated the finding from Study 1 and showed that performance on the executive functioning task also predicted 3- to 5-year-olds' performance on false sign tasks. These findings show that executive functioning is required to reason only about representations that are intended to reflect a true state of affairs. Results are discussed with respect to theories of preschoolers' theory-of-mind development.     

High school students' understanding of projectile motion concepts

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of conceptual change-based instruction and traditionally designed physics instruction on students' understanding of projectile motion concepts. Misconceptions related to projectile motion concepts were determined by related literature on this subject. Accordingly, the Projectile Motion Concepts Test was developed. The data were obtained through 43 students in an experimental group taught with learning activities based on conceptual change instruction and 39 students in a control group who followed traditional classroom instruction. The results showed that conceptual change-based instruction caused significantly better acquisition of conceptual change of projectile motion concepts than the traditional instruction.     

两种医疗操作过程中飞沫的产生

对2种会产生飞沫的医疗操作过程进行飞沫特性的初步实验研究：鼻咽分泌物（NPA）的抽吸和雾化治疗.抽吸鼻咽分泌物（NPA）时用玻片和水敏感试纸来收集产生的大飞沫,对玻片上飞沫留下的痕迹在显微镜下进行计数,然后进行粒径大小分析.雾化治疗时用粉尘监测仪来检测雾化器周围以及房间中不同位置的小飞沫和飞沫核.研究结果表明,鼻咽分泌物（NPA）的抽吸过程会引发咳嗽,产生大飞沫.雾化器每分钟可产生数千万0.3～20μm的细小飞沫,其中大部分飞沫会从雾化器面罩上的2个小孔中逸出,扩散到空气中.飞沫在面罩内壁以及志愿者脸上聚集凝结说明雾化治疗过程中药液极有可能被病人的分泌物污染.