The interactive effect of pro-environmental disciplinary concentration under cooperation versus competition contexts

This research explores the relevance of cooperation and students’ environmental disciplinary concentration on decision-making with respect to environmental issues – specifically the use of water, a limited common-pool resource. For this purpose, 61 environmental sciences students and 46 educational sciences students played the role of farmers and made decisions about irrigating their fields in the simulation ‘Irrigania.’ Prior to the simulation exercise, participants were randomly assigned to an experimental condition (competition or cooperation). Results demonstrated that both a cooperation situation and students’ environmental disciplinary concentration are related to the use of more pro-environmental and less selfish irrigation strategies in the simulation. Moreover, high levels of cooperation were able to counteract the lack of students’ disciplinary concentration on environmental problems; inversely, high levels of disciplinary concentration on environmental problems were able to counteract the competitive situations. This study highlights the relevance of programs that provide learning of (1) cooperative contexts that may reinforce cooperative frameworks on which students could base their behaviors, and (2) broader disciplinary concentration related to environmental problems that could lead to students feeling powerful in respect of knowing how to act against those problems and, thus, behaving in less selfish ways, with positive implications for the planet.     

自然科学教育中的性别差异

传统上，人们一直认为女性在自然科学方面的能力和发展不及男性。20世纪90年代中期，美国一些学者在布朗大学进行了一次关于“自然科学教育中的性别差异“的调查，并在这一调查研究基础上，对于如何在自然科学教育中贯穿一种性别视角提出建议。本文主要介绍这一研究成果，以期启发国内的相应研究与实践。     

Sex-role stereotyping by high school females in science

Although the participation by females in upper-level occupations and positions has expanded considerably in recent years, science is still considered a masculine career field. The results of this study show that only the physical sciences in particular (not science in general) are clearly viewed as masculine academic areas. Furthermore, the results suggest that the perception by girls of the physical sciences as masculine is much more likely to occur in coed classes than in all-female classes. The results can best be explained by two factors: (1) the attitudes conveyed by teachers and by society may predispose students toward a greater acceptance of women in biology than in the physical sciences; and (2) when girls perceive themselves as a deviant minority in physical science classes, their performance and preference for the physical sciences is reduced, perhaps because of competition and comparison with males. In all-female classes, however, girls are not a deviant minority, and therefore they are able to perform and develop preferences without inhibition.     

学生社团发展现状的调查与思考——北京工业职业技术学院为例

高职院校的学生社团是高校校园文化建设的重要载体,对高校学生素质教育发挥着不可替代的重要作用。学校通过开展丰富多彩的社团活动,为学生能力提高提供了广阔的空间和展示的平台。通过对当前我院学生社团发展状况的调查研究发现,学生社团存在分布不均衡、管理松散、指导不到位、缺乏物质保障等问题,针对这些问题提出相应对策,以期为我院学生社团发展提供借鉴。     

Professors’ Expectations of Students’ Ability to Think

Recent evaluations of the state of higher education have suggested that students must not only learn subject matter content but must be able to think with it. Professors in tertiary education expect that their students will come equipped to handle certain kinds of information and certain kinds of learning tasks. To describe their expectations, faculty use phrases such as the ability to think logically, or to do independent work, or to use abstract terms. But to what extent do they suppose that their students will be able to think? In a study of some learning tasks in the university, professors from three universities and six different disciplines, representatives of the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities, pure and applied, were interviewed. Faculty expectations of students’ ability to think logically, independently, and abstractly were analysed to show consistencies and differences across disciplines.     

Graduate teaching assistants: how well do their students think they do?

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) constitute a valuable and economical teaching force in many higher education undergraduate programmes. However, student satisfaction with their teaching has attracted little attention in the research literature. This study aimed at examining students’ evaluation of teaching of GTAs in discussion groups, as well as exploring the effects of group and GTA variables on these ratings. Data were collected using a questionnaire administered online and completed by 7078 undergraduate students. Participants were enrolled in classes taught by 278 GTAs from four faculties in a major Israeli university. Results indicated that ratings assigned to clarity of instruction were the most salient predictor of students’ overall evaluation. Generally, findings were consistent with those reported in the literature for other categories of instructors. Groups taught by GTAs in exact sciences and engineering were rated higher than those in social sciences and business management. Group size and the percentage of men students were inversely correlated with student ratings, while student attendance rate was positively correlated. Women GTAs and GTAs who taught more than one group tended to receive higher ratings. Overall student attendance rate was the most prominent predictor of student ratings. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

从布迪厄的资本理论看“问题学生”的生成

在我国,“问题学生”是在家庭、学校、社会等关系网络中被建构生成的,体现出复杂性、关系性等特征。本研究运用布迪厄的资本理论,阐释了“问题学生”是由于教育资本分配不均造成的,且惯习又使得“问题学生”的处境处于进一步恶化的过程中。     

高中英语阅读课堂教学中的教师提问与课堂互动

提问是英语教师在英语阅读课中最常用、最重要的教学手段之一。提问可以分为展示性提问和参考性提问两类。本文采用录音转为文字记录和学生访谈的方式,发现了高中英语阅读课上存在的问题:提问类型分配不合理、学生回答问题机会不均、缺少侯答时间、反馈方式单一等问题。因此该论文对于如何进一步优化高中英语教师阅读课提问技巧,增强师生课堂互动性,提高教学效率有一定意义。     

Fostering empathy in undergraduate health science majors through the reconciliation of objectivity and subjectivity: An integrated approach

The demand for empathetic health care practitioners requires an academic curriculum suited to that need. Here we describe a series of integrated activities that were designed to foster empathy in undergraduate health science majors. By combining content and pedagogical approaches from the humanities and sciences, we asked students to reconcile objective and subjective modes of understanding the human body as a learning object. Preliminary evaluations of student behavior, written student responses, and survey results are offered as support for our conclusion that the integration of a humanities perspective into the Anatomy classroom at University of Minnesota Rochester can facilitate the process of developing student empathy through the reconciliation of objective and subjective modes. Furthermore, students were able to apply this understanding to images on the page or screen, to living human learning objects and human cadavers. Although to claim that these activities in themselves can stymie the stasis/decline of empathy that health science students report would be patently false, we conclude that similar approaches could offer an avenue by which other educators might develop similar activities that, in aggregate, might have a lasting effect from the undergraduate through the graduate level of training in the health sciences. Anat Sci Educ. © 2012 American Association of Anatomists.     

央属高校招生名额分配的原则和方案设计

由于我国央属高校的地区分布不均衡,加之招生名额分配缺乏明确、合理的依据和有力的统筹,导致不同地区学生就读优质高校的机会差异悬殊,引起了社会的质疑和不满。本文通过大规模的数据分析,直观地描述了目前在分省配额制之下,我国各省考生就读央属高校入学机会的差异及其影响因素,提出了促进央属高校入学机会均衡化的基本原则,并在对多种方案进行模拟计算后,提出了可以大幅度改进招生名额分配的公平性且具有较强现实操作性的建议方案。     

The role of peers and grades in determining major persistence in the sciences

Using longitudinal administrative data from a large elite research university, this paper analyzes the role of peers and grades in determining major persistence in the life and physical sciences. In the physical sciences, analyses using within-course, across-time variation show that ex-ante measures of peer quality in a student's introductory courses has a lasting impact on the probability of persisting in the major. This peer effect exhibits important non-linearities such that weak students benefit from exposure to stronger peers while strong students are not dragged down by weaker peers. In both the physical and the life sciences, I find evidence that students are “pulled away” by their high grades in non-science courses and “pushed out” by their low grades in their major field. In the physical sciences, females are found to be more responsive to grades than males, consistent with psychological theories of stereotype vulnerability.     

Widening participation and the media student experience

Despite an increase in higher education uptake in the UK, participation rates for working class students remain low. When working-class students attend university, they are often attracted to lower status universities to enrol in new subject areas, such as media studies. This study uses Bourdieu’s theory of stratification, and its reproduction via cultural and educational capital, to examine the experiences of a group of 55 media students using qualitative methods. The study finds that working class students often struggle to find their way to university, while middle-class ones may arrive through much easier routes. Working-class students are often circumscribed in their mobility by financial factors or caring roles. The students’ experiences of seminars can be alienating and difficult as the teaching may draw on implicit middle-class cultural capital with particular modes of address and verbal dexterity. The partnership model of teaching assumes a normative construction of a specific mode of studenthood and students may find themselves marginalised if they are not able to engage with this; the concept of independent learning may serve to aggravate this marginalisation. The students often receive strong support from families, particularly mothers, but may also experience distanciation between themselves and their friends from home. Middle-class students are able to project an assured career trajectory; working-class students are often ambitious but do not have access to the privileged cultural and social capital to realise their goals as effectively. Despite the relatively large numbers of students from working-class backgrounds, the institutional habitus of the university remains alien to some of its students.     

Sigmatics- The Fusion of Science and Technology

For too long in the United Kingdom the pure sciences, particularly theoretical physics, have attracted unwarranted prestige, which has detracted status from engineering and technology, damaging the opportunities for industry to recruit suitable applicants. Both academic study and manufacturing industry are diminished when divorced from their roots and potential growing points. The ties between the pure sciences and industry are closer than many academics and industrialists allow. Action based on clearer recognition of this could bring a more immediate vitality to both science and industry.     

Practice makes proficient: teaching undergraduate students to understand published research

Scientific knowledge, including the critical evaluation and comprehension of empirical articles, is a key skill valued by most undergraduate institutions for students within the sciences. Students often find it difficult to not only summarize empirical journal articles, but moreover to successfully grasp the quality and rigor of investigation behind the source. In this paper, we use instructional scaffolds (reading worksheets, RWs, with tutorials) to aid students in being able to comprehend, and ultimately transfer, the skills necessary in critically evaluating primary sources of research. We assess students’ learning of these skills on a multiple-choice assessment of Journal Article Comprehension (JAC). Students in experimental classes, who received instructional scaffolds, improved on the JAC post-test compared with students in control classes. This result shows that students are acquiring fundamental research skills such as understanding the components of research articles. We also showed that improvement on the JAC post-test for the experimental class extended to a written summary test. This result suggests that students in the experimental group are developing discipline-specific science process skills that allow them to apply JAC skills to a near-transfer task of writing a summary.     

The Effects of Busing and School Desegregation on Majority and Minority Student Dropout Rates

Abstract

This study evaluates the effects of school desegregation by court-ordered busing on the subsequent dropout rate of majority and minority students. Using before and after busing measures of dropout rates, school records and personal interviews, this research finds majority dropout rates are not affected by desegregation procedures. While the dropout rates of bused minority students appear to be identical to those of non-bused minority students, large disparities between minority rates in various bused sectors indicate highly uneven educational experiences of bused minority students. School socio-economic composition and the expectations of teachers concerning student behavior are used to analyze the disparities, with the conclusion reached that the more favorable expectations of teachers at higher socio-economic climate schools produce lower minority student dropout rates. Desegregation produces a positive benefit for this most crucial dimension of minority student educational accomplishment, when the school to which the minority student is bused is one where teachers' expectations are positive and supportive.     

Teaching and research. The relationship between the supervision of graduate students and faculty research performance

This article examines the relationship between the supervision of graduate students and university faculty research performance. We find that the supervision of Ph.D. students who have projects related to their supervisor's research has an independent effect on faculty members' scientific productivity in the natural and medical sciences and technology, but not in the humanities and social sciences. The relationship between the supervision of project related major subject students and the faculty members' productivity is only significant in the social sciences. These results are generally supported by data on faculty attitudes toward the supervision of graduate students. Those who supervised Ph.D. students gave a considerably more favourable assessment of the importance of supervision for their own research than those who only supervised major subject students, and the proportion of faculty members who answered that supervision of Ph.D. students was part of their own research to a great extent, was very much higher in the natural and medical sciences and technology than in the humanities and social sciences.     

Teaching Science to Academically Underprepared Students

A major problem facing science education in the United States today is its failure to produce enough well-educated minority students in the natural sciences and engineering. In most cases, the early difficulties encountered by these students in middle schools persists for years and prevent majority of them from pursuing advanced degrees and careers in the sciences and engineering. Thus, the need for new teaching approaches that will motivate and channel these students, who represent the fastest growing segment of our society into science and engineering. A number of factors contribute to this underrepresentation, amongst which are perception, exclusion, and instructional strategies. Here, we report on some important factors and teaching strategies, which, when proper considered, would influence the success of minority students in the sciences. Transitional strategies are techniques that facilitators may use to help underprepared students to learn to bridge or relate different parts or situations to one common idea, fact, or skill. It is hoped that when this strategy is infused with content, along with study skills, learning styles, and sequence as well as students' personal inventories, minority performance in science and mathematics will improve.     

从985和211大学的区域分布看我国高等教育的公平性

我国高等教育的公平性问题主要体现在高校区域分布不均,尤其是高水平大学区域分布不均问题更为突出。通过对985和211大学在东部、中部、西部分布的差异,以及二者在京津沪、高考大省及其他省分布的差异进行研究,并通过对东部、中部、西部985大学专任教师与新生人数的平均比重进行研究,可以发现我国985和211大学主要集中在东部地区和京津沪地区。由于985和211大学对本地生源的照顾,从而加剧了我国高等教育在区域上的不公平。相应的建议是:增加中西部985和211大学的数量并加大支持力度,985和211大学在各省的招生数要符合其人口比重等。     

城乡义务教育资源分配差距分析

教育资源是学校生存和发展的前提条件。教育资源分配不均造成了城乡教育发展差距拉大。教育不公平现象成为社会和教育部门及政府共同关注的问题。试从城乡学校的教育经费、师资、教学条件等方面进行对比,并对这种差距进行深层次的分析。     

FOUR YEARS ON – A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE DIP. H.E. IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AT AVERY HILL COLLEGE, 1979–83

A thorough process of evaluation, both ongoing throughout the four years and an in-depth exercise in 1982, prior to submission of the revised course to CNAA for renewal of approval, has identified the various strengths and weaknesses of the course as a whole, and of constituent parts of the course. Of interest is the extent to which the course has attracted the mature student (75% or more of the students are mature entrants) and the success that these and the other students have had in transferring directly into the third year of degree programmes at linked institutions. Also of note is the extent to which students have been attracted to the notion of taking a broadly‐based programme of study for two years, which has enabled them to keep their options open for future direction, and the extent that students have subsequently been able to determine a direction for further study by the end of the second year. Another point of interest, and one which was entirely unanticipated, is the way that a proportion of the entrants, which was recruited via the Professional and Executive Register, obviously viewed the generalist study in a course such as this as a means of career reorientation, as well as a route back into Higher Education. All these points have served to vindicate the open policy operated in the selection of students joining the course.