Modeling Secondary Students’ Genetics Learning in a Game-Based Environment: Integrating the Expectancy-Value Theory of Achievement Motivation and Flow Theory

Journal of Science Education and Technology - This study examined students’ genetics learning in a game-based environment by exploring the connections between the expectancy-value theory of...     

The Analysis of Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory

Eugene A. Nida is an influential translation theoretician with great research achievements. The functional equivalence theory which is the core of his translation theories lays a solid foundation for t...     

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.     

Analysis of the Differences between Women’s Love Attitudes Reflected in Mansfield Park

Jane Austen is a famous 19th century English novelist,Mansfield Park is Jane Austen’s most famous novel.The article analyzes Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park,tries to have a comparative analysis of the three major female characters from the concept of love view in the work,especially analyzes the differences of three main female characters’love view:differences of love motivation and differences of love endings and the cause of such differences..     

An Analysis of China’s Four Traditional Festivals from the Perspective of the Theory of Cultural Functions

This paper analyzes the cultural elements of China’s four traditional festivals from the perspective of the Theory of Cultural Functions, which presents in detail the forming of traditional festivals, varied festival traditions and good expectations held by people toward lives. This paper is also designed with the aim to further exert the functions of traditional Chinese festivals, which as a result, will contribute to the preservation of national characters and the inheritance of national spirits.     

The Analysis of Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory

Eugene A. Nida is an influential translation theoretician with great research achievements. The functional equivalence theory which is the core of his translation theories lays a solid foundation for the modern translation. However, there also exist some limitations in it. It should be dialectically analyzed to find its contributions and limitations.     

Exploring the Effects of Intrinsic Motive,Utilitarian Motive,and Self-Efficacy on Students’ Science Learning in the Classroom Using the Expectancy-Value Theory

Research in Science Education - Students’ attitudes towards science is a long-standing topic in science education. Among various sub-constructs of attitudes towards science, students’...     

Development of an Attitude Scale to Measure the Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes Towards Nanobiotechnology

Nanobiotechnology, which resulted from the convergence of biotechnology and nanotechnology, is a new field of research, and it has an increasing impact on peoples’ everyday lives. Thus, it is important to measure peoples’ attitudes towards nanobiotechnology, in particular, those who are specifically involved in biology and science education. However, despite the existence of an adequate number of instruments on biotechnology or nanotechnology, for nanobiotechnology, there is no instrument that has been rigorously validated. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a nanobiotechnology scale for assessing the undergraduate students’ attitudes. The data were gathered from 236 student teachers enrolled in the departments of biology education and elementary science education. The findings from exploratory factor analysis (EFA) provided evidence for the validity and reliability of the final form of the scale. At total of 36 items were identified and contained within the following four factors, nanobiotechnology awareness, interest in nanobiotechnology, nanobiotechnology education, and the applications of nanobiotechnology. The total variance was 53.021%, and the Cronbach’s alpha for the overall scale was 0.93. The scale was later given to 203 student teachers, the results of which were presented in this study. The results indicated significant differences in gender and department in some of the subscales of the scale. As a result, it is believed that the instrument will be a valuable tool for both instructors and researchers in science education to assess the student teachers’ attitudes about nanobiotechnology.     

Correction to: Exploring the Effects of Intrinsic Motive,Utilitarian Motive,and Self-Efficacy on Students’ Science Learning in the Classroom Using the Expectancy-Value Theory

Research in Science Education - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The name "Wan Zhi Hong" should be corrected to "Zhi Hong Wan".     

Choices and changes: Eccles’ Expectancy-Value model and upper-secondary school students’ longitudinal reflections about their choice of a STEM education

During the past 30 years, Eccles’ comprehensive social-psychological Expectancy-Value Model of Motivated Behavioural Choices (EV-MBC model) has been proven suitable for studying educational choices related to Science, Technology, Engineering and/or Mathematics (STEM). The reflections of 15 students in their last year in upper-secondary school concerning their choice of tertiary education were examined using quantitative EV-MBC surveys and repeated qualitative interviews. This article presents the analyses of three cases in detail. The analytical focus was whether the factors indicated in the EV-MBC model could be used to detect significant changes in the students’ educational choice processes. An important finding was that the quantitative EV-MBC surveys and the qualitative interviews gave quite different results concerning the students’ considerations about the choice of tertiary education, and that significant changes in the students’ reflections were not captured by the factors of the EV-MBC model. This questions the validity of the EV-MBC surveys. Moreover, the quantitative factors from the EV-MBC model did not sufficiently explain students’ dynamical educational choice processes where students in parallel considered several different potential educational trajectories. We therefore call for further studies of the EV-MBC model's use in describing longitudinal choice processes and especially in investigating significant changes.     

A Multidimensional Scaling Analysis of Students’ Attitudes about Science Careers

To encourage students to seek careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, it is important to gauge students’ implicit and explicit attitudes towards scientific professions. We asked high school and college students to rate the similarity of pairs of occupations, and then used multidimensional scaling (MDS) to create a spatial representation of occupational similarity. Other students confirmed the emergent MDS map by rating each of the occupations along several dimensions. We found that participants across age and sex considered scientific professions to be less creative and less people‐oriented than other popular career choices. We conclude that students may be led away from STEM careers by common misperceptions that science is a difficult, uncreative, and socially isolating pursuit.     

An Anthology of Voices: an Analysis of Trainee Drama Teachers’ Monologues

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on research undertaken into the processes through which student teachers begin to formulate an identity as a professional teacher. Using Fuller's investigations into the attitudes of trainee teachers towards their courses (1969) as a baseline, a discussion is established on the place of the student voice in contemporary initial teacher training programmes. In order to further investigate the potential importance of affording student teachers the opportunity to reflect on and express their thinking and feeling as they embark on their chosen career path, the concerns of a group of student drama teachers were recorded and interpreted. The vehicle for this exercise involved writing and subsequently performing reflective monologues. These were analysed by using The Listening Guide as composed by Gilligan et al. (2003 Gilligan, C., Spencer, R., Weinberg, M. K. and Bertsch, T. 2003. “On the Listening Guide: a voice-centered relational model”. In Qualitative Research in Psychology Edited by: Camic, P. M., Rhodes, J. E. and Yardley, L. 157–172.  [Google Scholar]). This paper illustrates how the methodology revealed distinct yet generally harmonious voices at work in the group in the first few weeks of their training year. Subsequent analysis suggests a model for the initial formation of a teaching identity built on aspects of self, role and character. Recognising the relative values and relationships between these factors for student teachers may, it is argued, provide greater security for them while affording their tutors insights which could help them to re‐shape initial teacher training programmes.     

An Analysis of the Readers’ Roles in the Construction of Meaning in John Donne’s The Flea under Reader-Oriented Theory

Among the sundry studies in China on John Donne’s The Flea,there has been none done from the perspective of Reader-Oriented Theory to probe into the readers’ roles in the construction of meaning.The present article under Wolfgang Iser’s theories,in a further pursuit of the expansion of the gestalt of such studies on the poem,aims at exploring the readers’ active roles in complementing,completing and recreating the textual meaning,and differentiating the implied reader and the actual reader through the poem as well as attempting to fulfill the construction of the reading cognitive model through the interpretation of the conceit the flea.     

Pupils’ Attitudes to the Social Implications of Science

Summaries

English

Attitude statements, mostly concerned with the social implications of science, were administered to 2100 pupils of age 14+. The sample was divided into the top 25oO ('GCE') and the next 30‐40oo ('REST') of the ability range and further divided by sex and by coeducation and single‐sex education.

Factor analysis yielded measures of five independent attitudes to (1) science as a school subject (SUBATT) and to its implications (SOCATT) regarding (2) aesthetic/humanitarian issues; (3) practical benefits (4) value to the state for money invested (S) the activities of scientists. The attitude scores were correlated with the biology, chemistry and physics choices made at this age and with liking for these subjects’ teachers. There were 26/60 significant but low overall correlations with physics and chemistry choices, but only 5/30 for biology. A further 26 significant correlations arose either at high or low teacher liking, the former predominating with boys and the latter with girls.

A Kruskal‐Wallis analysis indicated that some attitudes in the ‘GCE’ group were unaffected by the school attended and possibly derived from the media. Adverse attitudes to the social implications of science may be a factor in the swing away from physical science and technology.     

Students’ Attitudes towards Peers with Disabilities: A review of the literature

The trend towards inclusive education has led to an increase of studies focusing on peer attitudes. This review study presents an overview of studies describing attitudes of students, variables relating to students’ attitudes, and the relationship between students’ attitudes and the social participation of peers with disabilities. Based on a literature search we selected 20 studies that were conducted in seven different countries. Outcomes were described in terms of negative, neutral or positive according to three attitude components (cognitive, affective and behavioural). The results show that students generally hold neutral attitudes towards peers with disabilities. Several variables were found relating to their attitudes (i.e., gender, age, experience with and knowledge about disabilities, parental influence). Moreover, the results indicate that attitudes of peers relate to the social participation of students with disabilities. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of promoting positive attitudes of peers.     

The Analysis of Sports Film Through the Adaptation Theory—Take Film Glory Road as an Example

The paper analyzes sports film from the aspect of Adaptation Theory,and gives an overview of explanatory power of the Adaptation Theory so that people could have a new and powerful to understand the using of language.     

Student Agency: an Analysis of Students’ Networked Relations Across the Informal and Formal Learning Domains

Agency is a construct facilitating our examination of when and how young people extend their own learning across contexts. However, little is known about the role played by adolescent learners’ sense of agency. This paper reports two cases of students’ agentively employing and developing science literacy practices—one in Singapore and the other in the USA. The paper illustrates how these two adolescent learners in different ways creatively accessed, navigated and integrated in-school and out-of-school discourses to support and nurture their learning of physics. Data were gleaned from students’ work and interviews with students participating in a physics curricular programme in which they made linkages between their chosen out-of-school texts and several physics concepts learnt in school. The students’ agentive moves were identified by means of situational mapping, which involved a relational analysis of the students’ chosen artefacts and discourses across time and space. This relational analysis enabled us to address questions of student agency—how it can be effected, realised, construed and examined. It highlights possible ways to intervene in these networked relations to facilitate adolescents’ agentive moves in their learning endeavours.     

An Analysis of the Novel “Awakening” Using Appraisal Theory

The paper mainly uses the attitude sub-system of the appraisal theory combining with rank scale to analyze the a wakening process of Edna,the heroinein the novel"Awakening".The article uses the emotion system to analyze Edna’s different love views before and after her awakening,resorts to the judgment system to show Edna’s deep loneliness accompanying her during her whole awakening process,and employs the appreciation system to explore the awakening of Edna’s sexuality.     

Investigating Preservice Teachers’ Science Teaching Self-Efficacy: an Analysis of Reflective Practices

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education - The purpose of this mixed methods research was to investigate the development of 55 preservice elementary teachers’ science...     

STEM outreach activities: an approach to teachers’ professional development

Abstract

STEM outreach programmes in secondary schools are mediated by STEM teachers who are responsible for organising, implementing and evaluating the activities with a view to promoting STEM subjects. However, research investigating teachers’ STEM roles and professional development through participation in outreach activities is limited. This paper explores teachers’ views of STEM activities, how they understand their role as primary facilitators and the impact of their STEM engagement on their professional development. STEM outreach provides distinct opportunities for situated and dialogic learning. STEM teachers’ effectiveness in engaging students by demonstrating the importance and relevance of STEM subjects in the real world and engaging captivating STEM outreach partners not only supports students learning but also enhances their opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills. Semi structured interviews were conducted with eleven teachers from six different schools in the West Midlands, United Kingdom. The data reveals STEM facilitators become the ‘face’ of STEM to their pupils. The expertise, knowledge and partnerships STEM facilitators develop, broadens their capacity to deliver teaching imbued with real world applications and improve students’ understanding of the range of new and upcoming careers available. Most importantly, participating in STEM outreach activities help teachers maintain and reinforce their own sense of identity as STEM professionals. Outreach activities provide opportunities for teachers to interact with leading scientists and obtain exposure to cutting-edge research.