Secondary School Students' Attitudes Towards Science

Four hundred and fifty‐one students' attitudes towards science were investigated. Two types of instruments (questionnaire and Attitude Scale) were used to collect the data. The results show that the students in general hold a favourable attitude towards science; male students have more positive attitude towards science than female students; the type of school (science‐school, single‐sex school or general secondary school) attended have an effect on the students' attitudes to science. The low enrollment in science is not due to the lack of interest or negative attitudes to the subject but may be due to some other variables that need to be investigated.     

Cognitive and Psychological Factors Underlying Secondary School Students' Feelings Towards Group Work

ABSTRACT Two-hundred-and-ninety secondary school students from Years 7, 9 and 11 completed questionnaires relating to motivational goals, metacognitive awareness, need for affiliation, social anxiety and feelings towards group work. Factor analysis revealed three attitudes towards participation in group work: a preference for group environments, a preference for individual work environments, and a sense of discomfort in group environments. Students reporting a preference for group work also indicated higher levels of sociability, lower levels of social anxiety, stronger mastery and performance goals, and greater levels of metacognitive awareness. Students expressing a preference for individual work environments reported lower levels of sociability and higher levels of social anxiety, but were not differentiated on any of the cognitive measures. Students reporting discomfort in groups similarly reported enhanced levels of social anxiety combined with lower levels of sociability, but also indicated lower levels of metacognitive awareness. Results are discussed in the context of current theoretical and empirical work on group-based learning.     

杰克·伦敦小说中对“敬畏生命”伦理学的否定

当代著名的思想家阿尔贝特.史怀泽创立了＂敬畏生命＂的伦理学,他认为任何生命都有着其存在的意义,因此,一切生命应该得到尊重。杰克.伦敦在他创作的多部小说中,都反映了对＂敬畏生命＂伦理学的否定,这种思想在马丁.伊登与海狼拉尔森身上表现的尤为突出。作者在作品中表现出的悲观厌世情绪与其生活经历有着千丝万缕的联系。     

Gender Stereotyping and Affective Attitudes Towards Science in Chinese Secondary School Students

This study explores explicit and implicit gender‐science stereotypes and affective attitudes towards science in a sample of Chinese secondary school students. The results showed that (1) gender‐science stereotyping was more and more apparent as the specialization of science subjects progresses through secondary school, becoming stronger from the 10th grade; girls were more inclined to stereotype than boys while this gender difference decreased with increasing grade; (2) girls tend to have an implicit science‐unpleasant/humanities‐pleasant association from the 8th grade, while boys showed a negative implicit attitude towards science up to the 11th grade. In self‐report, girls preferred humanities to science, while boys preferred science to humanities; (3) implicit affective attitude was closely related to implicit stereotype. In particular, implicit affective attitude has a stronger predictive power on stereotype than the other way around, the result of which may have more significance for girls.     

自尊的群体关联性及其启示

在国外学者关于自尊领域关联性的研究基础上,总结了自尊群体关联性的相关效应,并结合以往社会认同和集体自尊的研究,从理论上分析并论证了自尊对群体事件的依随性。最后,对由此产生的启示也作了分析和讨论。     

Group Work in Spoken English Teaching in Vocational School

In English class,teachers are inclined to instruct linguistic knowledge,neglecting the training of students’ linguistic behavior.Especially under the whole-class teaching mode,the opportunities for students to practice spoken English are rather limited in the class.Based on the theory of Cooperative Learning,group work,which is a kind of teaching method,will effectively solve this problem.My research is to study the influence of this activity on the students’ English learning through questionnaire in vocational college and how to make this activity more effective.     

A Structural Model of Attitudes Towards School Subjects,Academic Aspiration and Achievement

The aims of this study were to test the structure of attitudes to school subjects and to test the causal relationship between attitudes, level of aspiration (goal) and achievement with SEM procedures. A total of 280 high school students participated in the study. Items measuring attitude towards each subject matter clustered around one factor indicating that each school subject is unique, but related, to other subjects. These distinct, but related, factors seemed to be underlined by a higher-order construct: 'attitudes to school'. The structural analysis revealed that 'attitudes to school' influence achievement, but only indirectly. Level of aspiration had significant direct effect on achievement and mediated between 'attitudes' and achievement.     

Training Counselors to Facilitate the Transitions of Aging Through Group Work

Group counseling for elderly people and their caretakers is an effective, but specialized, treatment modality that should be included in counselor education curricula. Training needs and resources are described.     

Attitudes about Group Work among Criminal Justice Students: The Influence of Participation in Group Projects

Past research has considered factors that contribute to students’ attitudes about group projects. Much of this research has focused on the influence of demographic characteristics such as gender, race, and age. This study extends that past research and considers whether participating in group projects potentially changes students’ attitudes about group projects. Surveys were conducted with 85 students, 48 of whom had just completed a group project. Results showed that students who just completed a group project had slightly different attitudes about group projects than those who did not. Attention was also given to the total number of group projects to which students were exposed. Analyses showed that those who were exposed to more group projects held different attitudes about group projects than those who had fewer group projects. Implications are provided.     

Attitudes of School Psychologists Towards the Integration (Mainstreaming) of Children with Disabilities

SCHOOL psychologists serving primary and secondary schools in New South Wales were surveyed to ascertain their attitudes towards the main‐streaming of children with a wide range of disabilities. They were also asked to identify the resources required to meet the needs of these children in regular classrooms and to indicate their perceived role in the process of mainstreaming. Results indicated that school psychologists appeared to have a fairly optimistic perspective with regard to mainstreaming when compared with teachers. Comparisons of factor analyses of attitudes also suggested that school psychologists tended to group disability characteristics more in terms of traditional handicapping categories than with regard to the educational demands made upon teachers. While children with learning and behavioural difficulties represented psychologists’ largest case load, they did not always feel they had the skills to assist this group and were even less confident about other categories of disability. School psychologists also saw their roles with regard to mainstreaming as consultative rather than interventionist and attached little importance to knowledge of classroom techniques to facilitate the mainstreaming of children with disabilities. Implications of these data for the training and practice of school psychology were subsequently discussed.     

A Model for Teaching Group Work Through Service-Learning in a Baccalaureate Program

Generalist practice social workers need to master group leadership and facilitation skills, and the best way to achieve this goal is through actual practice. An innovative teaching approach used to engage undergraduate social work majors in developing group facilitation skills is a “hands-on” service-learning experience leading social skills groups with middle school children. Students have the opportunity for a meaningful educational experience while working with children in a school setting. A four-session social skills curriculum is provided.     

Modifying School Attendance of Special Education High School Students

Abstract

This study evaluated a program to modify the school attendance of special education (SE) high school students. Twenty 1st and 2nd-year SE high school students from a semirural area in the Southeast were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Treatment students received social and tangible rewards for good attendance, and their parents were notified whenever they were absent. All tangible rewards were donated by local businesses, and all procedures were implemented by university undergraduates working for course credit. Thus, treatment involved no cost to the high school. We predicted that treatment would lessen the degree to which students would show the decline in attendance that usually occurs over the course of the semester. As expected, students in the control group showed a significant linear decline in their attendance to SE and regular classes, p < .05. In contrast, students in the treatment group showed no significant decline in attendance over the course of the semester. The findings show that programs like the one evaluated here can reduce the absenteeism of SE high school students without any cost to the schools.     

Beliefs and Attitudes of Primary School Teachers in Mumbai,India Towards Children Who Stutter

Beliefs and attitudes of teachers in Mumbai, India, towards children who stutter were investigated using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Questionnaires were completed by 58 teachers, four of whom were subsequently interviewed. Results from the questionnaires showed that teachers believed that a child’s environment influenced stuttering and that children who stuttered had the potential to overcome the condition. They did not agree that children who stuttered were quiet and shy. Two global themes emerged from the interviews. These were teachers’ philosophies about stuttering, and their perceived roles in supporting children who stutter. All teachers reported limited experience of children who stutter, but their responses indicated a desire to do their best to support such children in the classroom. Stuttering was, however, considered to be less important to teachers’ working lives than dyslexia.     

A Scale to Measure the Attitudes of School Pupils Towards their Lessons in Physical Education

Attitude formation and attitude change in children may be seen as matters of central concern to the teacher. This paper describes how, in one particular subject area (physical education), the investigator gathered attitude statements from young children and produced a scale to measure their stated attitudes towards curriculum physical education. The paper relates the process of establishing test reliability and validity and indicates how standardisation and greater ease of administration may be achieved through the use of an audio tape presentation.     

Students' Attitudes Towards Educational Virtual Environments

This case study reports on an investigation of the attitude of education students towards virtual reality (VR) as a tool in the educational process, and towards virtual learning environments on specific disciplines. Our results indicate a favourable attitude towards VR in the educational process. Although immersion was not supported in this study, half of the students declared immersion experiences. Students consider the mouse the most effective input device for navigation in virtual environments, with a joystick the second one. Because the sampling population is small, the qualitative results must be regarded as tentative. There is, however, a need for further investigation, which is currently being undertaken by our group.