Staying in the science stream: patterns of participation in A‐level science subjects in the UK

This paper describes patterns of participation and attainment in A‐level physics, chemistry and biology from 1961 to 2009. The A level has long been seen as an important gateway qualification for higher level study, particularly in the sciences. This long‐term overview examines how recruitment to these three subjects has changed in the context of numerous policies and initiatives that seek to retain more young people in the sciences. The results show that recruitment to the pure sciences has stagnated, general trends have hardly varied and the track record of government policy in influencing change is not strong. There is no evidence for increasing achievement gaps between the sexes at A level and even national policy requiring that all young people study science up to the age of 16 appears to have had little impact on recruitment at this level.     

The long‐term effectiveness of anti‐bullying work in primary schools

The DFE Sheffield Anti‐Bullying Project showed that schools can reduce the problem of bullying through the use of whole‐school anti‐bullying policies, curriculum exercises, environmental improvements and individual work with bullies and victims. However, the length of time necessary to plan these interventions meant that, in many cases, the work was not completed when the project evaluations ended. This study investigates the continuing progress made in primary schools in the year after the end of the project. Eleven heads took part in interviews; all schools had made some progress with policy development, and all used some curriculum resources. Most had continued with environmental improvements, but few had used the methods for dealing with bullies and victims. Four schools then administered the Olweus bullying questionnaire to all pupils between ages seven and eleven, 657 children taking part. Two schools had a consistent decline in reported bullying, one experienced a consistent rise and the other an initial fall and subsequent rise. Important factors influencing success appeared to be the extent of the consultation exercise and the date of implementation of the anti‐bullying policy. All four schools had reduced bullying among boys, but three experienced a rise in bullying among girls. Anti‐bullying work may have been influenced by a male stereotype of bullying behaviour: efforts are necessary to raise awareness and promote honesty among girls. No school had raised the proportion of victims who had told staff about being bullied.     

What sort of science education do we really need?

The research aims to explore the role of science for employees in science-based industries and for members of the public interacting with science in their everyday lives. Case studies were carried out in a small sample of industries, in community action groups and in personal decision making. The methodology, informed by a tentative model of science, included scrutiny of available relevant documentation and semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that procedural understanding was essential in the higher levels of industry and in interacting effectively with everyday issues, while conceptual understanding was so specific that it was acquired in a need-to-know way. The implications for science education hinge on a substantial reduction in the conceptual content and the explicit teaching of the nature of evidence (procedural understanding). The authors suggest building on primary pupils' enthusiasm for investigative work at UK Key Stage 3 (11-14 years) and developing an issues-based curriculum at Key Stage 4 (14-16 years).     

Do we need more male primary teachers? Tensions and contradictions in the perspectives of male and female trainees

Primary teaching Initial Teacher Training courses across the UK have been under pressure from central government, Ofsted and the media to recruit more male students to their courses with the aim of increasing the proportion of males in the primary teaching workforce. This is because increasing the number of male role models in primary schools has been mooted as the solution to boys’ underachievement, especially in reading and writing. There is, however, little evidence showing any correlation between boys’ educational outcomes and the number of male primary teachers in schools. The purpose of the project reported in this paper was to ascertain the beliefs of the future primary school workforce about this focus on the need for male role models in schools. A mixed-methods approach was employed: 120 male and female primary trainees were surveyed and a further 48 took part in group interviews, all of whom were based in an Initial Teacher Training department in a university in North West England. Results indicated that although aspiring teachers felt that males and females could make equally good role models for children their personal value systems perpetuated the myth that boys need male role models to achieve better educational outcomes.     

Learning habits of students with special needs in short‐term vocational education programmes

This research examined some characteristics of the learning habits of students with special needs and those without them in programmes of short‐term vocational education in five areas: motivation, learning and learning techniques, emotional, social and the area of self‐evaluation. The research sample consisted of 140 students from different secondary schools. The Questionnaire on the Learning Habits of Adolescents was used for the purpose of the study. The differences between the means from individual learning habit scales, between the students with special needs or without them, were discovered by one‐way analysis of variance. Basic findings of empirical research emphasise that there exist statistically significant differences between the students with special needs and the students without special needs in four areas of learning habits. Among the findings causing concern in connection with learning habits, we would like to underscore the fact that students with special needs are perceived as less efficient at and less competent in coping with learning and work tasks. These students are not familiar with effective methods and strategies for successful learning, which leads to the feelings of frustration and helplessness in case of failure. In order to cultivate an effective and supportive educational environment for students with special needs, short‐term vocational schools should develop learning/teaching models that provide a potentially powerful alternative to traditionally directed teaching approaches.     

Do we need norms of fitness for children with autistic spectrum condition?

The increasingly sedentary habits of children, and rising obesity levels, are prompting concern for children's future health. Children with autistic spectrum condition (ASC) show a clear trend in this regard. Within school, an understanding of how an individual's fitness compares to age norms is important in order to design appropriate exercise programmes. This study, by Maurice Place, Kathleen Dickinson and Joanna Reynolds, all based at Northumbria University, assessed 100 children with ASC and learning difficulty, and found a wide variation in fitness levels as measured by the Eurofit tests. In addition the measure of cardio‐pulmonary fitness (VO_{2 max}) was generally poor. In boys, body mass index (BMI) showed only a modest correlation with this measure of cardio‐pulmonary fitness, with the results for the girls not being significant. Using a variant of the established BMI calculation did not improve the correlation. To our knowledge this article offers the first set of published Eurofit test results for children with ASC and highlights the generally poor level of cardio‐pulmonary fitness in this group of children.     

Intuitive rules in science and mathematics: the case of ‘more of A ‐‐ more of B’

In the last twenty years researchers have studied students’ mathematical and scientific conceptions and reasoning. Most of this research is content‐specific. It has been found that students often hold ideas that are not in line with accepted scientific notions. In our joint work in mathematics and science education it became apparent that many of these alternative conceptions hail from the same intuitive rules. We have so far identified two such rules: ‘The more of A, the more of B’ and, ‘Everything can be divided by two’. The first rule is reflected in students’ responses to many tasks, including all classical Piagetian conservation tasks (conservation of number, area, weight, volume, matter, etc.), in all tasks related to intensive quantities (density, temperature, concentration, etc.), and in tasks related to infinite quantities. The second rule is observed in responses related to successive division of material and geometrical objects, and in successive dilution tasks. In this paper we describe and discuss the first rule and its relevance to science and mathematics education. In a second paper (Tirosh and Stavy, in press) we shall describe and discuss the second rule.     

Do we click in the right way? A meta-analytic review of clicker-integrated instruction

Clickers, formerly known as instant response systems, have gradually become an integral part of the classroom. Though several reviews on research into clicker-integrated instruction have been published within this decade, the controversy over whether clicker-integrated instruction is effective to enhance students' learning gains has not been settled because the early reviews mainly focus on students' perceptions toward and acceptance of clicker-integrated instruction. Furthermore, so far there is no consistent and clear framework to explain why the use of clickers is effective or ineffective to facilitate academic learning outcomes. Based on the literature from the 1970s to the early 2010s, this review article identifies and summarizes the theoretical aspects accounting for possible relations between clicker-integrated instruction and academic learning outcomes. The theoretical aspects are subsequently evaluated and expanded in reference to primary studies. The results suggest that the superior effect of clicker-integrated instruction, compared to conventional lectures, stands on firm empirical ground. In addition, engaging students in explaining and justifying their answers to clicker questions is highly recommended because such an instructional strategy is associated with positive and strong effect sizes on academic learning outcomes.     

Do more hours in center-based care cause more externalizing problems? A cross-national replication study

Whether high quantities of center-based care cause behavior problems is a controversial question. Studies using covariate adjustment for selection factors have detected relations between center care and behavior problems, but studies with stronger internal validity less often find such evidence. We examined whether within-child changes in hours in center-based care predicted changes in externalizing problems in toddlers and preschoolers (N = 10,105; 49% female; data collection 1993–2012) in seven studies, including from Germany, Netherlands, Norway, two from Canada and two from the U.S. Race/ethnicity data were only collected in the United States (57% and 80% White; 42% and 13% African-American; 1.2% and 5% Latinx). Meta-analyses showed no association (r = .00, p = .88) between hours in center-based care and externalizing problems.     

Primary teachers’ self‐perceptions concerning implementation of the National Curriculum for science in the UK

This paper reports on selected aspects of data, with special reference to science, derived from a survey of primary school teachers as part of the Leverhulme Primary Project at the University of Exeter.

A national sample of teachers (N = 901) across 152 schools was surveyed in order to ascertain teachers’ perceptions of competence and needs with respect to the new National Curriculum in the UK. Initially, data were collected in relation to ten subject areas and generic teaching skills, with provision made for free‐form responses concerning National Curriculum implementation.

Selected aspects of these data, principally related to the National Curriculum core area of science, were subjected to detailed further analysis and are reported. Variables identified from the survey findings, and of concern to science educators, included early subject specialism, years of teaching and gender. These were probed for relationships and significance. The tension between competing National Curriculum requirements for specialist subject knowledge and generalist teaching skills was explored.

Findings have implications for innovation in approaches to staff development to cater for perceived needs, teacher educators and curriculum alignment.     

Do we need Positive Psychology in Croatian kindergartens? The implementation possibilities evaluated by preschool teachers

Constant changes in a modern world and scientific knowledge from the growing field of Positive Psychology appear to make a previously unheeded contribution to preschool teacher competences. The aim of this study was to explore preschool teachers' opinions concerning the need for positive psychology knowledge and its implementation. A nine-item pool was used on a sample of 49 preschool teachers (mean age 33) enrolled in a graduate programme of early and preschool care and education in Rijeka. Overall, preschool teachers liked this subject very much and thought it was needed very much for their profession at all work levels. Also, they viewed the positive psychology findings as very useful and applicable in their work, and especially in their work with children. Finally, they saw lots of implementation possibilities in Croatian kindergartens.     

The dynamics of disaster: A three‐dimensional view of documentation in a tightly regulated industry

Although effective public policy depends upon accurate post‐accident reports and investigations, accident reports in a large government agency reflect a linear, sequential model of cause and effect that fails to account for the multidimensional nature of accidents in tightly coupled technologies. As a result, unions, agencies, and operators engage in fiercely contested public debates over responsibility and authority when disasters occur. In proposing a three‐dimensional model of accident analysis (both visual and verbal), this article illustrates how underlying models of causality influence the structure of technical reports and the nature of the argument over responsibility and authority in largescale technological disasters.     

Can we meet their expectations? Experiences and perceptions of feedback in first year undergraduate students

Student ratings of satisfaction with feedback are consistently lower than other teaching and learning elements within the UK higher education sector. However, reasons for this dissatisfaction are often unclear to teaching staff, who believe their students are receiving timely, extensive and informative feedback. This study explores possible explanations for this mismatch between staff and students’ perceptions of feedback quality. One hundred and sixty-six first year undergraduate students completed a questionnaire detailing their experiences of feedback on coursework before and throughout their first year at university. Results indicate that whilst procedural elements of feedback (timeliness and legibility) are considered satisfactory, past experiences (pre-university) may influence student expectations of feedback. Some students had a severe, negative emotional response to the feedback provided and few students engaged in self-help (independent learning) behaviours to improve their performance following feedback. We consider how changes in feedback practices could improve students’ use of, and satisfaction with, their feedback.     

Early childhood education and care: Do we need to develop the physical literacy of educators?

The early years are critical for physical literacy (PL) and physical activity (PA). With increasing numbers of children attending early childhood education and care (ECEC), educators play a significant role in childhood development and may influence young children’s PL journey. Educators receive minimal training in PL and PA, but receive increasing direction to integrate these concepts into ECEC learning. The purpose of this study was to assess educators’ PL, then determine which components of their PL were associated with self-reported intentions and behaviours to promote PL and PA. Educator PL was moderate, while self-reported intentions and behaviours to provide PL and PA opportunities were high. Only one component of PL was associated with intentions and behaviours. The PL of educators may not inform their intentions and behaviours to provide PL and PA within ECEC frameworks.