Development and Validation of an Instrument to Measure University Students’ Biotechnology Attitude

The impact of biotechnologies on peoples’ everyday lives continuously increases. Measuring young peoples’ attitudes toward biotechnologies is therefore very important and its results are useful not only for science curriculum developers and policy makers, but also for producers and distributors of genetically modified products. Despite of substantial number of instruments which focused on measuring student attitudes toward biotechnology, a majority of them were not rigorously validated. This study deals with the development and validation of an attitude questionnaire toward biotechnology. Detailed information on development and validation process of the instrument is provided. Data gathered from 326 university students provided evidence for the validity and reliability of the new instrument which consists of 28 attitude items on a five point likert type scale. It is believed that the instrument will serve as a valuable tool for both instructors and researchers in science education to assess students’ biotechnology attitudes.     

Developing a Scale to Measure Students’ Attitudes toward Chemistry Lessons

Students’ attitudes toward chemistry lessons in school are important dependent variables in curriculum evaluation. Although a variety of instruments have been developed by researchers to evaluate student attitudes, they are plagued with problems such as the lack of theoretical rationale and of empirical evidence to support the construct validity of data. This paper describes a study of students’ attitudes toward chemistry lessons in Hong Kong secondary schools. One of the scales in the Test of Science‐Related Attitudes developed by Fraser was modified to form an Attitude Toward Chemistry Lessons Scale (ATCLS). The construction of the ATCLS was based on a theoretical model with four dimensions: liking for chemistry theory lessons, liking for chemistry laboratory work, evaluative beliefs about school chemistry, and behavioural tendencies to learn chemistry. The arguments for inclusion of these four dimensions are presented. The final version of ATCLS was administered to 954 students. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that there was a good fit between the hypothesised model and the observed data.     

Development and Validation of a Scale to Assess Students’ Attitude towards Animal Welfare

This work presents the development of a scale of attitudes of secondary-school and university students towards animal welfare. A questionnaire was drawn up following a Likert-type scale attitude assessment model. Four components or factors, which globally measure animal welfare, are proposed to define the object of the attitude. The components are animal abuse for pleasure or due to ignorance (C1), leisure with animals (C2), farm animals (C3) and animal abandonment (C4). The final version of the questionnaire contains 29 items that are evenly distributed among the four components indicated, guaranteeing that each component is one-dimensional. A sample of 329 students was used to validate the scale. These students were aged between 11 and 25, and were from secondary schools in Aragon and the University in Zaragoza (Aragon's main and largest city, located in NE Spain). The scale shows good internal reliability, with a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.74. The questionnaire was later given to 1,007 students of similar levels and ages to the sample used in the validation, the results of which are presented in this study. The most relevant results show significant differences in gender and level of education in some of the components of the scale, observing that women and university students rate animal welfare more highly.     

Development of a Scale for Measuring Students’ Attitudes Towards Learning Professional (i.e., Soft) Skills

Research in Science Education - Employers lament that science graduates, particularly engineering students, lack professional skills, despite increasing emphasis on teaching professional skills in...     

Construction and Validation of an Instrument to Measure Taiwanese Elementary Students’ Attitudes toward Their Science Class

The main purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the attitudes toward science class of fourth‐ and fifth‐grade students in an Asian school culture. Specifically, the development focused on three science attitude constructs—science enjoyment, science confidence, and importance of science as related to science class experiences. A total of 265 elementary school students in Taiwan responded to the instrument developed. Data analysis indicated that the instrument exhibited satisfactory validity and reliability with the Taiwan population used. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.93 for the entire instrument indicating a satisfactory level of internal consistency. However, both principal component analysis and parallel analysis showed that the three attitude scales were not unique and should be combined and used as a general “attitudes toward science class” scale. The analysis also showed that there were no gender or grade‐level differences in students’ overall attitudes toward science class.     

Development and Validation of an Instrument to Measure Students’ Motivation and Self‐Regulation in Science Learning

Students’ motivational beliefs and self‐regulatory practices have been identified as instrumental in influencing the engagement of students in the learning process. An important aim of science education is to empower students by nurturing the belief that they can succeed in science learning and to cultivate the adaptive learning strategies required to help to bring about that success. This article reports the development and validation of an instrument to measure salient factors related to the motivation and self‐regulation of students in lower secondary science classrooms. The development of the instrument involved identifying key determinants of students’ motivation and self‐regulation in science learning based on theoretical and research underpinnings. Once the instrument was developed, a pilot study involving 52 students from two Grade 8 science classes was undertaken. Quantitative data were collected from 1,360 students in 78 classes across Grades 8, 9, and 10, in addition to in‐depth qualitative information gathered from 10 experienced science teachers and 12 Grade 8 students. Analyses of the data suggest that the survey has strong construct validity when used with lower secondary students. This survey could be practically valuable as a tool for gathering information that may guide classroom teachers in refocusing their teaching practices and help to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention programmes.     

Undergraduate Social Work Students’ Perceptions of a Team-Based Learning Approach to Exploring Adult Development

ABSTRACT

Social work educators are challenged to adopt innovative instructional methods and pedagogies to prepare students to meet the contemporary needs of diverse client populations. A team-based learning (TBL) approach is a pedagogical strategy that utilizes cooperative and collaborative learning principles to inspire academic, professional, and interpersonal growth for students. This study explores perspectives of 93 undergraduate social work students regarding the benefits and challenges of using a TBL approach to research adult development. Despite identifying several benefits of this method, including in-depth learning and enhanced relationships, students also experienced significant challenges to working in teams.     

Exploring the Use of the Revised New Ecological Paradigm Scale (NEP) to Monitor the Development of Students’ Ecological Worldviews

Higher education institutions are interested in the impact that they and concurrent life experiences may have on students’ sustainability attitudes, but they lack formal processes to monitor changes. We used the NEP to monitor changes in students’ ecological worldviews. We were interested in what variation there would be in a multidisciplinary group, if the NEP could detect changes in students’ ecological worldviews over a limited time period, and to learn more about the NEP and its use. We conclude that the NEP is a valuable research instrument for this study and that monitoring students’ attitudes is a worthwhile precursor to debating the issues institutionally.     

Development of an Instrument for Assessing Undergraduate Science Students’ Perceptions: The Problem-Based Learning Environment Inventory

This study aimed to develop and validate a problem-based learning environment inventory which would help teachers and researchers to better understand student views on problem-based learning environments. The development of the inventory included the following four steps: Item Formulation; Content Validation; Construct Validation; Reliability Calculation. It has 23 items allocated to four scales: (1) Student Interaction and Collaboration; (2) Teacher Support; (3) Student Responsibility; (4) Quality of Problem. Each learning environment item had a factor loading of at least 0.40 with its own scale, and less than 0.40 with all other scales. The results of the factor analysis revealed that the four scales accounted for the 53.72% of the total variance. The alpha reliability coefficient for the four scales ranged from 0.80 to 0.92. According to these findings, the Problem-based Learning Environment Inventory is a valid and reliable instrument that can be used in the field of education.     

Undergraduate Biotechnology Students’ Views of Science Communication

Despite rapid growth of the biotechnology industry worldwide, a number of public concerns about the application of biotechnology and its regulation remain. In response to these concerns, greater emphasis has been placed on promoting biotechnologists’ public engagement. As tertiary science degree programmes form the foundation of the biotechnology sector by providing a pipeline of university graduates entering into the profession, it has been proposed that formal science communication training be introduced at this early stage of career development. The aim of the present study was to examine the views of biotechnology students towards science communication and science communication training. Using an Australian biotechnology degree programme as a case study, 69 undergraduates from all three years of the programme were administered a questionnaire that asked them to rank the importance of 12 components of a biotechnology curriculum, including two science communication items. The results were compared to the responses of 274 students enrolled in other science programmes. Additional questions were provided to the second year biotechnology undergraduates and semi‐structured interviews were undertaken with 13 of these students to further examine their views of this area. The results of this study suggest that the biotechnology students surveyed do not value communication with non‐scientists nor science communication training. The implications of these findings for the reform of undergraduate biotechnology courses yet to integrate science communication training into their science curriculum are discussed.     

Students’ Changing Attitudes and Aspirations Towards Physics During Secondary School

Research in Science Education - Many countries desire more students to study science subjects, although relatively few students decide to study non-compulsory physics at upper-secondary school and...     

Students’ Expectations of Teaching in Undergraduate Physics

This article reports on a phenomenographic‐based study of the expectations of teaching among undergraduate physics students. Data are drawn from a range of course‐contexts at each of two quite different universities — one South African and one Swedish — and five qualitatively different expectations of physics teaching are identified and exemplified. These range from presenting knowledge to facilitating personal development and agency. Implications of possible mismatches between students’ and lecturers’ expectations of physics teaching are discussed in relation to students’ learning experiences.     

How to measure teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion: evaluation and validation of the Differentiated Attitudes Towards Inclusion Scale (DATIS)

The aim of the three different studies presented was the development and evaluation of the Differentiated Attitudes Towards Inclusion Scale as a valid, reliable and economic instrument for the measurement of teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of students with certain special educational needs (SEN). In a sample of student teachers, exploratory factor analyses on the versions of the questionnaire with focus on Learning Disabilities (LD) and Emotional and Behavioural Disturbances (EBD), respectively, indicated four first-order factors. These factors represent attitudes concerning the social and academic impact of inclusive education on students with and without SEN. They can be combined in a higher-order model with one general second order factor. Using confirmatory factor analyses, this factorial structure was replicated in another student teacher sample and in a sample of primary and secondary school teachers. Furthermore, attitudes towards the inclusion of students with EBD were significantly more negative than those towards the inclusion of students with LD. The findings emphasise the need to distinguish between certain SEN when measuring teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion. Potential applications of the new measure are discussed.     

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...     

Students’ Views and Attitudes Towards the Communication Code Used in Press Articles About Science

The present research was designed to investigate the reaction of secondary school students to the communication code that the press uses in science articles: it attempts to trace which communication techniques can be of potential use in science education. The sample of the research consists of 351 secondary school students. The research instrument is a questionnaire, which attempts to trace students’ preferences regarding newspaper science articles, to explore students’ attitudes towards the science articles published in the press and to investigate students’ reactions towards four newspaper science articles. These articles deal with different aspects of science and reflect different communication strategies. The results of the research reveal that secondary school students view the communication codes used in press science articles as being more interesting and comprehensible than those of their science textbooks. Predominantly, they do not select science articles that present their data in a scientific way (diagrams and abstract graphs). On the contrary, they do select science articles and passages in them, which use an emotional/‘poetic’ language with a lot of metaphors and analogies to introduce complex science concepts. It also seems that the narrative elements found in popularized science articles attract students’ interest and motivate them towards further reading.     

Students’ Development of Representational Competence Through the Sense of Touch

Electromagnetism is an umbrella encapsulating several different concepts like electric current, electric fields and forces, and magnetic fields and forces, among other topics. However, a number of studies in the past have highlighted the poor conceptual understanding of electromagnetism concepts by students even after instruction. This study aims to identify novel forms of “hands-on” instruction that can result in representational competence and conceptual gain. Specifically, this study aimed to identify if the use of visuohaptic simulations can have an effect on student representations of electromagnetic-related concepts. The guiding questions is How do visuohaptic simulations influence undergraduate students’ representations of electric forces? Participants included nine undergraduate students from science, technology, or engineering backgrounds who participated in a think-aloud procedure while interacting with a visuohaptic simulation. The think-aloud procedure was divided in three stages, a prediction stage, a minimally visual haptic stage, and a visually enhanced haptic stage. The results of this study suggest that students’ accurately characterized and represented the forces felt around a particle, line, and ring charges either in the prediction stage, a minimally visual haptic stage or the visually enhanced haptic stage. Also, some students accurately depicted the three-dimensional nature of the field for each configuration in the two stages that included a tactile mode, where the point charge was the most challenging one.     

Development of an Instrument to Measure Undergraduates’ Nanotechnology Awareness, Exposure, Motivation, and Knowledge

There are many educational interventions being implemented to address workforce issues in the field of nanotechnology. However, there is no instrument to assess the impact of these interventions on student awareness of, exposure to, and motivation for nanotechnology. To address this need, the Nanotechnology Awareness Instrument was conceptualized. This paper is a progress report of the instrument development process. Version 1 of the instrument was administered to 335 first-year students majoring in food and agriculture fields in a pre–post fashion relative to a brief exposure to nanotechnology in the classroom. Following item analysis of Version 1 responses, a revision of the instrument was completed. Version 2 was administered to 1,426 first-year engineering students for the purpose of conducting item and factor analyses. Results indicate that the Nanotechnology Awareness Instrument shows potential to provide valid information about student awareness of, exposure to, and motivation for nanotechnology. The instrument is not a valid measure of nano-knowledge and this subscale was dropped from the final version of the instrument. Implications include the use of the instrument to evaluate programs, interventions, or courses that attempt to increase student awareness of nanotechnology. Further study is necessary to determine how the Nanotechnology Awareness Instrument functions as a pre–post measure.     

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.     

The Effects of a Flipped Classroom Model of Instruction on Students’ Performance and Attitudes Towards Chemistry

This study establishes the effects of a flipped classroom model of instruction on academic performance and attitudes of 66 first-year secondary school students towards chemistry. A pre-test and post-test experimental design was employed to assign students randomly into either the experimental or control group. In order to assess the suitability of using flipped model of instruction, students were divided in two groups. For the first group called the experimental group, a “flipped classroom” was used in which the students were given video lessons and reading materials, before the class to be revised at home. On the other hand, the second group followed traditional methodology, and it was used as control. The rate of reaction knowledge test and the chemistry attitude scale were administered. In addition, the researcher documented classroom observations, experiences, thoughts and insights regarding the intervention in a journal on a daily basis in order to enrich the data. Students were interviewed at the end of the research in order to enrich the qualitative data also. Findings from this study reveal that the flipped instruction model facilitates a shift in students’ conceptual understanding of the rate of chemical reaction significantly more than the control condition. Positive significant differences were found on all assessments with the flipped class students performing higher on average. Students in the flipped classroom model condition benefited by preparing for the lesson before the classes and had the opportunity to interact with peers and the teacher during the learning processes in the classroom. The findings support the notion that teachers should be trained or retrained on how to incorporate the flipped classroom model into their teaching and learning processes because it encourages students to be directly involved and active in the learning.     

Using Technology-Enhanced Inquiry-Based Instruction to Foster the Development of Elementary Students’ Views on the Nature of Science

The Next Generation Science Standards support understanding of the nature of science as it is practiced and experienced in the real world through interconnected concepts to be imbedded within scientific practices and crosscutting concepts. This study explored how fourth and fifth grade elementary students’ views of nature of science change when they engage in a technology-enhanced, scientific inquiry-oriented curriculum that takes place across formal and informal settings. Results suggest that student engagement in technology-enhanced inquiry activities that occur in informal and formal settings when supported through explicit instruction focused on metacognitive and social knowledge construction can improve elementary students’ understanding of nature of science.