Experiences in Sense Making: Health Science Students’ I-Positioning in an Online Philosophy of Science Course

This article reports on a qualitative study on the dialogical approach to learning in the context of higher education. The aim was to shed light on the I-Position and multivoicedness in students’ identity building and to provide empirical substantiation for these theoretical constructs, focusing especially on the connection between personal knowledge and theoretical knowledge. The study explored how health science students’ reflections on their work and discipline-related experiences provided resources for making personal sense of and understanding the subject studied. The students took an online course on the philosophy of science. To study students’ internal and external dialogue in terms of multivoicedness in their sense-making processes I combined a discourse analysis with a dialogical approach. The results showed that in reflecting on their experiences in light of different scientific approaches, the students became engaged in dialogues with different voices, thereby experiencing tensions in their professional positioning. The reasoning tasks gave rise to internal dialogue, involving negotiation between different I-Positions of the self or heterodialogue with the texts. These identity negotiations were manifested in refining, strengthening, and reconstructing professional and scientific I-Positions and in sharing and constructing a We-Position.     

Students’ Overuse of Linearity: An Exploration in Physics

In mathematics education, a vast amount of research has shown that students of different ages have a strong tendency to apply linear or proportional models anywhere, even in situations where they are not applicable. For example, in geometry it is known that many students believe that if the sides of a figure are doubled, the area is doubled too. However, also history of science provides several cases of thinkers who inadequately postulated linear relations to describe situations. This article focuses on secondary school students’ over-reliance on linearity in physics. Now and then, science educators report students’ tendency to assume and impose linear relations in physics, but—as far as we know—no substantial efforts were undertaken to study this phenomenon systematically. We conducted an empirical investigation aimed at identifying the competence of 8th- and 11th-graders—before and after being taught the relevant physical topics—to qualitatively grasp various situations in physics, as well as their tendency to quantify that qualitative insight linearly. The results provide an ambivalent picture of students’ overuse of linearity in physics: Although linear reasoning is sometimes used as a default strategy, even after instruction that addresses the relevant physical contents, this study also indicates that context is taken into account more often than is suggested by research on mathematical problem solving.     

Analysis of STEM Activities in Primary Students’ Science Projects in an Informal Learning Environment

This study adopted a researcher-generated framework to analyze STEM activities demonstrated in primary students’ science projects in an annual extracurricular event held in Hong Kong. Ten students’ project reports were randomly selected from each of the three groups of 24 outstanding, 45 merit, and 68 consolation awarded projects. Content analysis was conducted to code the activities in each project. The coded information was then changed into numerical data for quantitative analysis. The results showed that, in general, more engineering and science activities than technology and mathematics activities were adopted by the primary students in their projects. More projects with the Outstanding Award conducted STEM activities than those projects with Merit and Consolation Awards, and significant group differences existed in the science and mathematics activities. Besides, science activities significantly positively related to engineering and mathematics activities. Furthermore, STEM-related content knowledge of discipline core ideas and crosscutting concepts were reported. This study sheds light on the pattern of STEM activities in students’ science projects, and has implications for promoting STEM integration in primary education.     

Counseling Students’ Experiences in an Islamic-Based Counseling Course

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of learning and consequent development of twelve students enrolled in a four-year undergraduate counselling program at a higher institution of learning in Malaysia. The students’ ages ranged from 20 to 24 years. Participants outlined their learning experiences after taking a three-credit semester-long course on Islamic-based counseling, which was an attempt at integrating religion and spirituality into counselor training. An experiential learning theory served as the framework of reference, and a qualitative research design was adopted. Results revealed four major themes: (1) increased understanding of counseling, (2) better understanding in regard to the self and relationship with God, (3) applicability to daily practice, and (4) enhancing professional competence as a counselor. Finally, implications for research, counselor education and training, and clinical practice are discussed.     

An Exploration of Indonesian Postgraduate Students’ Conceptions of Learning

Abstract

This study sets out to explore and model selected aspects of the approaches to, and conceptions of, learning by Indonesian postgraduate students. Meyer's Experiences of Learning Inventory was administered to 105 postgraduate students at the University of Indonesia in 1995. In 1996, Meyer and Boulton‐Lewis's Reflections on Learning Inventory was administered to a separate group of 94 postgraduate students studying at the same University. An initial finding is that, for a Javanese subgroup of responses, some established operationalised constructs collectively associated with a broader ‘meaning orientation’ to learning, in particular a ‘deep approach’, exhibit low values of internal consistency (alphas between 0.18 and 0.51; ‘deep approach'= 0.28). In contrast, non‐Javanese responses exhibit acceptably higher values of internal consistency (alphas between 0.54 and 0.76; ‘deep approach’ = 0.60). Further contrasts between these two subgroups emerge in terms of exploratory factor structures (of conceptions of learning and related effects). It is argued that an understanding of variation in students’ conceptions of learning, and the influence of these conceptions on the experiences of postgraduate students, can assist supervisors and support staff to better assist them during their candidature. Such assistance, while being important for local postgraduate students, takes on an added dimension when students and supervisors are working within a cross‐cultural setting.     

Towards an Understanding of Situated Learning：Students’Perceptions in an Interpretation Course

Situated learning approach has been applied in various teaching contexts, and increasing advocations have been shown in the particular context of language teaching. This study applied situated learning...     

Bringing Up Girls in Science (BUGS): The Effectiveness of an Afterschool Environmental Science Program for Increasing Female Students’ Interest in Science Careers

Bringing Up Girls in Science (BUGS) was an afterschool program for 4th and 5th grade girls that provided authentic learning experiences in environmental science as well as valuable female mentoring opportunities in an effort to increase participants’ academic achievement in science. BUGS participants demonstrated significantly greater amounts of gain in science knowledge as measured by the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in Science (ITBS-S). The original BUGS participants and contrasts have now completed high school and entered college, allowing researchers to assess the long-term impact of the BUGS program. Fourteen former BUGS participants completed two instruments to assess their perceptions of science and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers. Their results were compared to four contrast groups composed entirely of females: 12 former BUGS contrasts, 10 college science majors, 10 non-science majors, and 9 current STEM professionals. Results indicate that BUGS participants have higher perceptions of science careers than BUGS contrasts. There were no significant differences between BUGS participants, Science Majors, and STEM professionals in their perceptions of science and STEM careers, whereas the BUGS contrast group was significantly lower than BUGS participants, Science Majors, and STEM Professionals. Additional results and implications are discussed within.     

Identity at Risk: Students’ Identity Configuration in the Aftermath of Trauma

Two and a half years after the July 2011 massacre on the Norwegian island of Utøya, 68 of the adolescent survivors were interviewed about their everyday life at school. The interviews revealed changes in the interplay and counterplay between student identity and social identity when new identities connected to the massacre were introduced in the school arena. This dynamic has two prominent contradictory aspects: (1) the strong need to avoid being associated with the massacre, yet (2) they also experience a high degree of imposed external framing of identity configuration. This article investigates school as an arena where unwanted identity changes are played out. School emerges as an arena that can complicate the rehabilitation process by confirming and specifying the changes caused by exposure to trauma. Implications for what trauma support at school could entail for trauma-exposed adolescents are indicated.     

Nursing Students’ Perceptions of a Silent Mentor Program in an Anatomy Course

Anatomy is a core course in undergraduate nursing curriculum. In today’s nursing profession, the integration of biosciences and humanities is increasingly emphasized. Anatomy is considered one of the most essential bioscience subjects for nursing practice. Thus, integrating a silent mentor program into the anatomy course can enrich the knowledge of undergraduate nursing students regarding biosciences and humanities and enhance their future patient-centered care competencies. This article aimed to understand the students’ perceptions of integrating a silent mentor program into the anatomy course. Qualitative approach included four focus group interviews. Themes were developed using the analytic induction technique. Twenty-five second-year undergraduate nursing students from a university were recruited. Semi-structured interviews were used to guide four focus group interviews. Focus group interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. According to the preliminary findings, nursing students regarded silent mentors not only as teaching tools but also as tools to learn more than anatomy. Students greatly respected the silent mentors and were highly engaged in the anatomy course. They expected to become better students or future nurses. Four themes were identified from the interviews: emotional transformation, caring spirit, course engagement, and self-expectation. The findings suggest that the silent mentor program offered students a beneficial learning experience and stimulated their developing competency in nursing humanities. How the silent mentor program can help students achieve optimum academic performance and how their positive experience of the program and humanistic spirit translates into clinical practice in future should be studied further.     

Students’ Views of Design in an Engineering Design-Based Science Curricular Unit

Recent reforms in science education have supported the inclusion of engineering and their practices in K-12 curricula. To this end, many classrooms have incorporated engineering units that include design challenges. Design is an integral part of engineering and can help students think in creative and interdisciplinary ways. In this study, we examined students’ conceptions of design during and after participation in a design-based science curriculum unit. Our study was guided by the following research question: What are students’ views of design after participation in an engineering design-based science curriculum unit and how are these views reflected in their enactment throughout the unit? Using a qualitative approach, we examined students’ conversations throughout the enactment of the curriculum and interviews conducted after the completion of the unit. We found that students had complex and diverse views of design, and these views were reflected in their group discussions throughout the curriculum and design challenge. Students most frequently expressed design as learning and as a process of integration into a coherent whole. These aspects of design were also frequently observed in students’ conversations during the unit. Interestingly, we found evidence of students demonstrating several aspects of design throughout the curriculum that were not explicitly expressed during the student interviews. Taken together, these findings support the complex nature of design as seen at the middle school level.

     

Preservice Teachers’ Reconciliation of an Epistemological Issue in an Integrated Mathematics/Science Methods Course

Preservice teachers in six sections (n = 87) of a sequenced, methodological and process-integrated elementary mathematics/science methods course were able to reconcile an issue centered on a similar area of epistemology. Preservice teachers participated in a science inquiry lesson on biological classification and a mathematics problem-solving lesson on polyhedra. Preservice teachers were asked why it was possible to derive a mathematical formula for polyhedra and not organisms and what this implies about the similarities and differences between the epistemologies of mathematics and science. An area of epistemology known as simplicity was triangulated as “simple versus complex” emerged from the constant comparative method (28 %) and “justification and simplicity” (96 %) was coded with a content analysis. Implications include how methods course instructors can create other appropriate activities which incorporate and reconcile other areas of epistemology.     

Integrating Computational Thinking into Elementary Science Curriculum: an Examination of Activities that Support Students’ Computational Thinking in the Service of Disciplinary Learning

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Using an example of a grade 3 science unit about population changes during competition for resources, we describe how we integrated computational...     

Teaching Students from Other Cultures: An Exploration of Language Teachers’ Experiences with Ethnic Minority Students

This article reports on a qualitative study investigating a group of novice ESL teachers’ teaching experiences with ethnic minority students in secondary schools in Hong Kong. It finds that, while teachers argue that society has not been tolerant enough of ethnic minorities, they nonetheless believe that ethnic minorities should comply with societal expectations in order to gain respect and more opportunities. In passing judgement on ethnic minority students’ learning style and life attitudes, and in urging that they be changed, the teachers have, perhaps unconsciously, perpetuated and reified underlying societal stereotypes. It is found that the accented English spoken by ethnic minority students has been devalued and delegitimized, which may disempower them in educational settings and prevent them from expressing and defending their ideas. Implications for education pre-service and novice ESL teachers working with ethnically diverse students are discussed.     

Prospective Elementary Teachers’ Analysis of Children’s Science Talk in an Undergraduate Physics Course

We investigated how prospective teachers used physics content knowledge when analyzing the talk of elementary children during special activities in an undergraduate physics content course designed for prospective teachers. We found that prospective teachers used content knowledge to reflect on their own learning and to identify students’ science ideas and restate these ideas in scientific terms. Based on this research, we inferred that analyzing children’s ideas through videos provides a meaningful context for applying conceptual physics knowledge in physics courses. Activities that are embedded within a disciplinary curriculum, such as those studied here, may help prospective teachers learn to use disciplinary knowledge in exactly the type of activity in which their content knowledge will be most useful: listening to and interpreting children’s science ideas.     

An Investigation of University Students and Professionals’ Professional STEM Identity Status

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Set amidst the backdrop of concerns related to the entry of students to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers, this study...     

Describing Changes in Undergraduate Students’ Preconceptions of Research Activities

Research has shown that students bring na?ve scientific conceptions to learning situations which are often incongruous with accepted scientific explanations. These preconceptions are frequently determined to be misconceptions; consequentially instructors spend time to remedy these beliefs and bring students' understanding of scientific concepts to acceptable levels. It is reasonable to assume that students also maintain preconceptions about the processes of authentic scientific research and its associated activities. This study describes the most commonly held preconceptions of authentic research activities among students with little or no previous research experience. Seventeen undergraduate science majors who participated in a ten week research program discussed, at various times during the program, their preconceptions of research and how these ideas changed as a result of direct participation in authentic research activities. The preconceptions included the belief that authentic research is a solitary activity which most closely resembles the type of activity associated with laboratory courses in the undergraduate curriculum. Participants' views showed slight maturation over the research program; they came to understand that authentic research is a detail-oriented activity which is rarely successfully completed alone. These findings and their implications for the teaching and research communities are discussed in the article.