Comparing children's and student teachers’ ideas about science concepts

Children and teachers may not think in the same way about particular science concepts. Such parallel lines of thought can compound children's confusion and misunderstanding as they learn science at primary school. The situation could be more acute when student teachers are teaching science, because of their limited experience of considering children's ideas. This paper investigates children's and student teachers’ ideas about certain science concepts: ‘animal’, ‘flower’, ‘living’, ‘force’ and ‘energy’. The ideas and understandings of 96 children and 168 student teachers were explored. Results showed that the student teachers and children had similar ideas about ‘flower’ and ‘animal’, whereas they evidenced very different responses to ‘living’, ‘energy’ and ‘force’. Implications for classroom practice are considered.     

A study of the difficulties of care and support in new university teachers’ work

This paper discusses some findings from a small‐scale qualitative study involving ‘new’ teachers in a medium sized, regional English university. Using Grounded Theory methods to inform and guide the research, the study explores participants’ views on working as both teachers and researchers whilst also managing considerable amounts of ‘caring work’ with a diverse body of students who often need academic and pastoral support in excess of that assumed within the university academic timetables or support networks. The voices of these teachers suggest that care is an overlooked aspect of university teachers’ work, yet it plays an important part in maintaining their and their students’ sense of scholarly endeavour. Further, our findings suggest that within the university at large there is a ‘discourse of difference’ in the way that many academics conceptualize and represent the student body and students’ needs to be supported. This discourse impacts on the development of new teachers’ identities and aspirations. Some implications of these findings for implementing strategies for supporting teachers to develop both academic and pastoral roles within universities are discussed.     

Opinion polling and the measurement of Americans’ attitudes regarding education*

Abstract

The meaning, measurement, and implications of ‘public opinion’ have long been a source of debate. In this paper, we examine the extent to which the educational priorities of elites in the US reflect the educational priorities of the American public. To do so, we focus on one particular segment of the education policy-making elite – education poll creators. Through a content analysis of questions asked between 1969 and 2013 in the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools, we examine the salience of key educational issues over time. We compare these trends to the proportion of poll respondents who label those issues the ‘biggest problem’ facing schools, thereby approximating two different conceptions of public opinion regarding education. We find that the issues that receive the most coverage by pollsters do not typically match the issues that respondents claim to be the biggest problems in schools. In light of the important role that opinion polls may play in shaping discussion and debate over educational issues, we argue that further study of the construction of public opinion is warranted.     

Pre-service teachers’ difficulties in reasoning about sampling variability

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Past studies have documented some pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) difficulties in reasoning about sampling variability. This study adds to the body of...     

Students’ concepts and attitudes toward citizenship: the case of Hong Kong

This paper analyses the data obtained from the findings on Hong Kong, as a part of the IEA second civic study. Because the survey was conducted two years after Hong Kong's return to China, the findings reflect concepts and attitudes toward citizenship among Hong Kong students shortly after the change of sovereignty. The study shows that Hong Kong ranks highest in two aspects of citizenship: civic knowledge and attitudes toward immigrants. Hong Kong ranks lowest in attitudes toward the nation, support for women's political rights, confidence in participating at school, and open classroom climate. Moreover, Hong Kong students are most concerned about elections and freedom of expression, but are least interested in political parties. They are more interested in social-related citizenship issues, and try to avoid confrontational and activist politics. This suggests that Hong Kong students are concerned with citizenship issues and politics; are very knowledgeable, and while they are also concerned about society, do not favor confrontations. This partly reflects a Chinese culture and partly reflects that depolicitization perpetuates beyond 1997.     

Israeli Students’ Conceptions of Science and Views about the Scientific Enterprise

Abstract

Israeli students’ conceptions of the nature of science and views about the scientific enterprise were studied within the framework of the Second International Science Study (SISS). Representative samples of 10, 14 and 17year‐old student, about 2000 in each, responded to background questionnaires and a battery of tests and scales. The Science Understanding Measure, a 20 item, multiple choice instrument provided data on understanding the nature of science by 14 and 17 year‐olds. An Attitude toward Science Scale provided data on the views of 10, 14 and 17 year‐olds on the importance of science to society and to individuals, the usefulness of science in everyday life and on harmful aspects of science. A comparison was made between the view of Israeli, British and USA students. The relationships of the conceptions and views of 17 year‐olds with personal, home and school variables as well as with achievement in science, intentions for further learning and career aspirations were explored as well. Based on the results and conclusions some recommendations are offered on how to enhance the understanding of science and promote more positive attitudes towards the scientific enterprise     

Improving the judgment of task difficulties: prospective teachers’ diagnostic competence in the area of functions and graphs

To teach adaptively, teachers should be able to take the students’ level of knowledge into account. Therefore, a key component of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is the ability to assume the students’ perspectives. However, due to the so-called expert blind spot, teachers tend to misestimate their students’ knowledge, such as when estimating the difficulty of a given task. This empirically well-documented estimation bias is predicted by Nickerson’s anchoring and adjustment model, which generally explains how people take on other people’s perspectives. In this article, we present an intervention study that aims to improve the accuracy of prospective teachers’ judgments of task difficulty in the area of functional thinking. Two types of treatments are derived from Nickerson’s model. In the first condition (PCK group), participants acquire knowledge about task characteristics and students’ misconceptions. The second condition (sensitizing group) serves to control the idea that potential improvements in the PCK group are not merely based on a pure sensitization of the expert’s estimation bias. Accordingly, these participants are only informed about the general tendency of overestimating task difficulties. The results showed that the PCK group improved both in terms of the accuracy of the estimated solution rates and the accuracy of rank order, whereas the sensitizing group only improved in regard to the former. Thus, the study shows that prospective teachers’ diagnostic judgments can be improved by teaching them relevant PCK in a short amount of time.     

Junior High School Students’ Ideas about the Shape and Size of the Atom

The concept of the atom is one of the building blocks of science education. Although the concept is a foundation for students?? subsequent learning experiences, it is difficult for students to comprehend because of common misconceptions and its abstractness. The purpose of this study is to examine junior high school students?? (ages 12?C13) ideas about the shape and size of the atom and the evolution of these ideas over 2?years. The study??s sample size was 126 students, including 76 sixth-grade and 50 seventh-grade students. The educational curriculum and relevant literature guided the development of a questionnaire that consisted of three open-ended questions intended to determine students?? knowledge of the structure and physical properties of the atom. After administering the questionnaire, collected data were analysed qualitatively. The study shows that students had difficulty developing a mental image of the atom, and contrary to the conclusions of other studies, students demonstrated a preference for working with complex and abstract models.     

Assessing students’ learning about fundamental concepts of climate change under two different conditions

Students from three different British Columbia grade six classes were followed through two weeks of instruction on climate change. Pre, post, and follow-up surveys were used to determine the differences in knowledge gained and retained by students that received direct instruction from their science teacher, and by those who received equivalent content instruction from outside presenters. The teacher participant also completed a survey on her experience with the researcher-designed lesson plans. Students’ results on the surveys were compared to results from a control group with no intervention. The teacher-based setting resulted in significantly higher knowledge gain, although no difference was found between the groups’ rate of knowledge decline thereafter. Highest gains in knowledge were for the carbon cycle and the human impacts topic, followed by understanding the difference between climate and weather. The students and teacher alike appeared to struggle with the topic of global warming and the greenhouse effect. The research suggests that with the appropriate background information the classroom teacher is likely to be more effective at conveying the science of climate change, particularly when it is taught through an understanding of the carbon cycle and its human impacts. It also suggests that those non-governmental organizations engaged in climate change education might be better served by investing their limited resources in the development of learning materials and subsequent professional development for teachers rather than focusing on in-school presentations.     

False Dichotomy? ‘Western’ and ‘Confucian’ concepts of scholarship and learning

Discourses of ‘internationalisation’ of the curriculum of Western universities often describe the philosophies and paradigms of ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ scholarship in binary terms, such as ‘deep/surface’, ‘adversarial/harmonious’, and ‘independent/dependent’. In practice, such dichotomies can be misleading. They do not take account of the complexities and diversity of philosophies of education within and between their educational systems. The respective perceived virtues of each system are often extolled uncritically or appropriated for contemporary economic, political or social agendas. Critical thinking, deep learning, lifelong and lifewide learning are heralded as the outcomes of Western education but these concepts are often under‐theorised or lack agreed meanings. Equally fuzzy concepts such as ‘Asian values’ or ‘Confucian education’ are eulogised as keys to successful teaching and learning when Asia prospers economically. They are also used to explain perceived undesirable behaviour such as plagiarism and uncritical thinking when Asian economies do not do so well. We argue that in general, educationists should be aware of the differences and complexities within cultures before they examine and compare between cultures. This paper uses the Confucian‐Western dichotomy as a case study to show how attributing particular unanalysed concepts to whole systems of cultural practice leads to misunderstandings and bad teaching practice.     

University students’ understanding of the concepts empirical,theoretical, qualitative and quantitative research

University research education in many disciplines is frequently confronted by problems with students’ weak level of understanding of research concepts. A mind map technique was used to investigate how students understand central methodological concepts of empirical, theoretical, qualitative and quantitative. The main hypothesis was that some students have a confused conception of empirical. The mind maps revealed that in the beginning of the course, 75% of the students hold a problematic conception of research, and after the half year course, still half of the participated students had problems with expressing a scientifically sound conception of research. In addition to general undevelopedness of the maps, a severe confused conception of drawing a link from empirical to qualitative or quantitative, but not to both, was found. This finding indicates that some students have problems with understanding the very basic and central concept of empirical.     

Reading self‐concepts and task choices for children with reading difficulties

Abstract

This project examined the personal and the social basis of children's self‐concepts about reading. Study 1 [N= 55] was a correlational study. Results suggest a stronger personal than social basis for children's self‐concepts about reading. In particular, children made stronger comparisons among content areas than gender groups. Study 2 [N= 18] was an intervention study. The focus was on the personal basis of self‐concepts, for children with reading difficulties. Results showed that self‐concepts were responsive to the intervention, with associated change in task choices. Findings support a self‐categorization approach to understanding children's self‐concepts, and imply that this approach would be useful in motivating children about reading.

Reading is regarded as integral to general living skills and is central to children's learning across many areas of schooling. This means that we need to understand more about the self‐concepts that motivate children to take up and persist with reading activities. H is a particularly pressing issue for children who experience difficulties with reading. This project therefore examined the personal and social basis of children's self‐concepts about reading. The focus was the salience of children's personal and social categorisations about reading that underpin reading self‐concepts and associated choices of reading tasks.     

A review of key issues in the measurement of children’s social and emotional skills

Recent policy developments (such as the Children’s Plan) and the introduction of a new national strategy (the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning programme) have re‐emphasised the importance of social and emotional skills in educational contexts. As such, educational psychologists are increasingly likely to be involved in the measurement of social and emotional skills, either as part of their case‐work or through research. They may also be asked to provide advice to schools looking to evaluate certain aspects of their practice in this area. The aim of this paper is to provide a discussion of key issues in the measurement of social and emotional skills in children and adolescents. These include: difficulties with the underlying theory and frameworks for social and emotional skills, inconsistent terminology, the scope and distinctiveness of available measures, psychometric properties, and more practical issues such as the type of respondent, location and purpose of measurement. The paper concludes with a call for more research and the further development of appropriate measures.     

Teachers’ perceptions and concerns about the implementation of the 2005 preschool curriculum in Tanzania

The aim of this study was to examine teachers’ perceptions and concerns about the implementation of the preschool curriculum developed over 10 years (2005–2015). This paper reports findings from an interpretive case study design in four preschool settings in Tanzania with 12 teachers and 8 parent participants. Data were generated using interviews and documentation. The research focus was on how teachers have implemented the 2005 preschool curriculum. The findings indicate that the implementation of the curriculum was problematic due to teachers’ lack of knowledge of a child-centred pedagogy. In addition there were no teachers qualified to work with young children, overcrowded classrooms, poor teaching and learning environments, and insufficient teaching and learning materials and facilities. This study recommends that to improve the current situation and attain quality provision of early education, teachers need to develop their professional knowledge through in-service training. The government policy planners need to provide initial teacher education, professional development, and conducive teaching and learning environments with available resources for effective teaching and learning practices.     

Children’s reading difficulties,language, and reflections on the simple view of reading

Reading comprehension is a complex task which depends on a range of cognitive and linguistic processes. According to the Simple View of Reading, this complexity can be captured as the product of two sets of skills: decoding and linguistic comprehension. The Simple View explains variance in reading comprehension and provides a good framework to guide the classification of reading disorders. This paper discusses how weaknesses in either or both of components of the Simple View are implicated in children’s reading comprehension difficulties. It concludes with reflections on the strengths and limitations of the Simple View as a theoretical and practical framework to guide our understanding of reading comprehension and its development.     

Computer science students’ use of the internet for academic purposes: difficulties and learning processes

ABSTRACT

Higher-education students now have more alternatives for searching for information than previous generations had. The Internet is a vast ocean of information sources, albeit with diverse reliability and quality. In Web 2.0 platforms, any participant can be a content creator. This reality is challenging for both the instructors and the students. We conducted interviews with 12 Computer Science students and 8 instructors from two universities to (a) identify the difficulties students encounter, if at all, (b) identify the learning processes that students undergo, if at all, when using the Internet for their CS studies, in particular, programming tasks; and (c) elicit instructors’ perceptions of students’ use of the Internet. Both students and instructors agreed that although using the Internet is not trivial, direct teaching of this skill is unnecessary. Instructors differed in their attitudes towards students’ use of the internet. We found that in the first year the students’ use of the Internet and their difficulties are similar to reports in the empirical literature, and echo the instructors’ concerns. However, after extensive experience, students undergo a learning process, and their ability to navigate the myriad sources, as well as to search, manage, and effectively evaluate Internet sources improves. Students mentioned their improved abilities to code as a means to effectively evaluate information sources.     

The structure of students’ beliefs about the use of representations and their performance on the learning of fractions

Cognitive development of any concept is related with affective development. The present study investigates students’ beliefs about the use of different types of representation in understanding the concept of fractions and their self‐efficacy beliefs about their ability to transfer information between different types of representation, in relation to their performance on understanding the concept. Data were collected from 1701 students in Grade Five to Grade Eight. Results revealed that multiple‐representation flexibility, ability on solving problems with various modes of representation, beliefs about the use of representations and self‐efficacy beliefs about using them constructed an integrated model with strong interrelations in the different educational levels. Confirmatory factor analysis affirmed the existence of differential effects of multiple‐representation flexibility and problem‐solving ability in respect to cognitive performance and the existence of general beliefs and self‐efficacy beliefs about the use and the role of representations. Results suggested the invariance of this structure across primary (Grades Five and Six) and secondary education (Grades Seven and Eight). However, there are interesting differences concerning the interrelations among those cognitive and affective factors between primary and secondary education.     

Young children’s photographs of measurement in the home

This article explores the use of children’s photography as a method for conducting mathematics education research with young children. Collected as part of a study focusing on the experiences with measurement children have at the start of schooling, the photographs presented here were taken by children aged five and six years, from two Australian primary schools. The children took a digital camera home and were asked to photograph things that they considered to be related to measurement. While the intended use of the photographs was to provide insight into the types of experiences children have with measurement in the home context, an additional outcome to emerge from the research was a deeper understanding relating to the strengths and weaknesses of using children’s photography and photo elicitation as a research method with young children. This article presents some of the insights gleaned from this mathematics education research, and examines the use of children’s photography and photo elicitation as a research strategy for working in early years research contexts.     

Exploring the use of concept chains to structure teacher trainees’ understanding of science

This paper reports on a paper and pencil concept‐sorting strategy that enables trainee teachers to restructure their knowledge in any one domain of science. It is used as a self‐study tool, mainly to enable them to break down and understand the progression of concepts beyond the level at which they have to teach. The strategy involves listing key ideas in an increasingly complex and inclusive fashion such that a ‘chain’ is developed where the initial statements are simple and the final ones more complex. Evaluation of the strategy with trainees over a five‐year period revealed promising potential for the strategy as a self‐study tool, as well as an audit tool, enabling tutors to more easily identify misconceptions. There was some evidence that trainees found the strategy useful in preparing themselves to teach in the classroom, possibly by enabling meaningful learning to take place according to the Ausubel–Novak–Gowin theory.     

Developing an instrument for assessing students’ concepts of the nature of technology

Background: In Bangladesh, a common science curriculum caters for all students at the junior secondary level. Since this curriculum is for all students, its aims are both to build a strong foundation in science while still providing students with the opportunities to use science in everyday life – an aim consistent with the notion of scientific literacy.

Purpose: This paper reports Bangladeshi science teachers’ perspectives and practices in regard to the promotion of scientific literacy.

Sample: Six science teachers representing a range of geographical locations, school types with different class sizes, lengths of teaching experience and educational qualifications.

Design and method: This study employed a case study approach. The six teachers and their associated science classes (including students) were considered as six cases. Data were gathered through observing the teachers’ science lessons, interviewing them twice – once before and once after the lesson observation, and interviewing their students in focus groups.

Results: This study reveals that participating teachers held a range of perspectives on scientific literacy, including some naïve perspectives. In addition, their perspectives were often not seen to be realised in the classroom as for teachers the emphasis of learning science was more traditional in nature. Many of their teaching practices promoted a culture of academic science that resulted in students’ difficulty in finding connections between the science they study in school and their everyday lives. This research also identified the tension which teachers encountered between their religious values and science values while they were teaching science in a culture with a religious tradition.

Conclusions: The professional development practice for science teachers in Bangladesh with its emphasis on developing science content knowledge may limit the scope for promoting the concepts of scientific literacy. Opportunities for developing pedagogic knowledge is also limited and consequently impacts on teachers’ ability to develop the concepts of scientific literacy and learn how to teach for its promotion.