Science Engagement and Literacy: A retrospective analysis for students in Canada and Australia

Given international concerns about students' pursuit (or more correctly, non-pursuit) of courses and careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, this study is about achieving a better understanding of factors related to high school students' engagement in science. The study builds on previous secondary analyses of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) datasets for New Zealand and Australia. For the current study, we compared patterns of science engagement and science literacy for male and female students in Canada and Australia. The study's secondary analysis revealed that for all PISA measures included under the conceptual umbrella of engagement in science (i.e. interest, enjoyment, valuing, self-efficacy, self-concept and motivation), 15-year-old students in Australia lagged their Canadian counterparts to varying, albeit modest, degrees. Our retrospective analysis further shows, however, that gender equity in science engagement and science literacy is evident in both Canadian and Australian contexts. Additionally, and consistent with our previous findings for indigenous and non-indigenous students in New Zealand and Australia, we found that for male and female students in both countries, the factor most strongly associated with variations in engagement in science was the extent to which students participate in science activities outside of school. In contrast, and again for both Canadian and Australian students, the factors most strongly associated with science literacy were students' socioeconomic backgrounds, and the amount of formal time spent doing science. The implications of these results for science educators and researchers are discussed.     

Bridging the Gap? A Comparative,Retrospective Analysis of Science Literacy and Interest in Science for Indigenous and Non‐Indigenous Australian Students

Previous research has shown that indigenous students in Australia do not enjoy equal educational outcomes with other Australians. This secondary analysis of PISA 2006 confirmed that this continues to be the case in science literacy for secondary students. However, the analysis also revealed that indigenous Australian students held interest in science equal to that of their non‐indigenous peers, and that observed variations in science literacy performance were most strongly explained by variations in reading literacy. These findings hold important implications for teachers, teacher educators, policy‐makers, and researchers. Firstly, acknowledging and publicly valuing indigenous Australian science knowledge through rethinking school science curriculum seems an important approach to engaging indigenous students and improving their literacy in science. Secondly, appropriate professional learning for practising teachers and the incorporation of indigenous knowing in science methods training in teacher preparation seems warranted. Additionally, we offer a number of questions for further reflection and research that would benefit our understanding of ways forward in closing the science literacy gap for indigenous students. Whilst this research remains firmly situated within the Australian educational context, we at the same time believe that the findings and implications offered here hold value for science education practitioners and researchers in other countries with similar populations striving to achieve science literacy for all.     

Expecting the unexpected: engaging diverse young people in conversations around science

The issue of limited engagement with science for young people from Indigenous, minority and lower socio-economic groups in Australia appears to have been sidelined from the mainstream debate around falling rates of engagement with science at the secondary schooling level. The ‘closing the gap’ mantra of education policy in Australia has seen an extraordinary focus on improving literacy and numeracy outcomes for Indigenous students, which, while valuable, has subsumed the importance of other key learning areas including science. Teachers are soon to be expected to incorporate Indigenous Perspectives within the science subjects of the new Australian National Curriculum yet appear to be under-resourced to meet this challenge to traditional approaches to science teaching. The purpose of this paper is to explore the pedagogy of a teacher working at an alternative secondary schooling site in North Queensland Australia who volunteered to modify his teaching of science to explicitly incorporate Indigenous Perspectives. The qualitative data collected through classroom observation and teacher interviews demonstrates the complex and multi-faceted nature of the science education experience when traditional pedagogical boundaries are dismantled to allow for a drawing upon of the lived experiences of diverse young people. The teacher’s ability to embrace this broader vision of science is linked to the inclusive culture of the alternative school environment that is brought into being through a ‘common ground’ philosophy of mutual respect and democratic relations.     

Experience of disadvantage: The influence of identity on engagement in working class students’ educational trajectories to an elite university

Pervasive socio‐economic differences in relation to participation in higher education in the United Kingdom are particularly prominent in the most prestigious institutions. This study provides insight into why some individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds are successful in being admitted into one of these institutions. Underpinned by phenomenology, semi‐structured interviews were carried out to examine the lived experiences of high‐achieving students from socio‐economically disadvantaged backgrounds throughout their educational trajectories from primary school to a Russell Group university. Two main themes emerged from the data: identity and educational engagement. Various sources of disadvantage associated with material hardship, socio‐cultural and interpersonal factors were strongly linked to identity and students’ perceptions of their own social status. In turn, these factors and identity‐related constructs associated with peer‐group memberships, low expectations and negative group stereotypes affected how individuals engaged with education, contributing, for instance, to their lack of active involvement at school/college and poor attendance. However, identity‐related factors were also found to influence individuals’ educational engagement positively, including their motivations for overcoming obstacles, achieving high grades and pursuing HE. The barriers and facilitators discussed by these individuals have important implications for widening access to HE and thus require further consideration.     

BANGLADESHI SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES OF SCIENTIFIC LITERACY AND TEACHING PRACTICES

In line with a current global trend, junior secondary science education in Bangladesh aims to provide science education for all students to enable them to use their science learning in everyday life. This aim is consistent with the call for scientific literacy, which argues for engaging students with science in everyday life. This paper illustrates Bangladeshi science teachers’ perspectives of scientific literacy along with their views on teaching practices. Participating teachers held a range of perspectives of scientific literacy, including some naive perspectives. The paper also reports that whilst teachers’ verbalised practices in relation to their emphasis on engaging students with science in everyday life follows the emphases as required in teaching for promoting scientific literacy, their assessment practices may not be useful to promote it. The discussion explores the meaning of these findings and provides implications for school science educational practice in Bangladesh.     

Science classroom activities and student situational engagement

This study examines the association between student situational engagement and classroom activities in secondary school science classrooms in Finland and the U.S. Situational engagement is conceptualised as times when students feel that a task is interesting and challenging to them and that they have the skills to complete it (see Schneider et al., 2016. Investigating optimal learning moments in U.S. and Finnish science classes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(3), 400–421. doi:10.1002/tea.21306). Data on situational engagement and classroom activities were obtained using the experience sampling method (ESM) from 247 Finnish students in 13 secondary science classrooms and 281 U.S. students in 18 secondary science classrooms. In both samples, the students tended to be situationally engaged only a small proportion of the time during their science classes. However, the Finnish students were more likely than the U.S. students to report being situationally engaged. To investigate when the students were most likely to report being situationally engaged, hierarchical logistic regression models were employed, which suggested that some classroom activities were associated with higher levels of student situational engagement than others. The Finnish students were more likely to report being situationally engaged when calculating and presenting scientific information. In the U.S., the students were more likely to report being situationally engaged while discussing scientific information and less likely when listening to the teacher. The results suggest that situational engagement is momentary and associated with specific science classroom activities.     

The effects of parental involvement on students’ academic self‐efficacy,engagement and intrinsic motivation

This research examined whether various dimensions of parental involvement predicted 10th‐grade students’ motivation (engagement, self‐efficacy towards maths and English, intrinsic motivation towards maths and English) using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS 2002). Results showed that both parents’ educational aspiration for their children and school‐initiated contact with parents on benign school issues had strong positive effects on all five motivational outcomes. On the contrary, parent–school contact concerning students’ school problems was negatively related to all five motivational outcomes investigated in the study. Additionally, parental advising positively predicted students’ academic self‐efficacy in English as well as intrinsic motivation towards English, and family rules for watching television were positively linked to students’ engagement and intrinsic motivation towards both English and maths.     

Development and validation of an educational robot attitude scale (ERAS) for secondary school students

Humanoid robots equipped with social skills have come to be used increasingly in the field of education across various subfields such as science education, special education, and foreign language education. In order to enhance the use of humanoid robots in educational settings, and to comprehensively evaluate its impact on the transformation of the class, understanding students’ attitudes towards the use of robots for educational purposes plays a critical role. This paper outlines the implementation and validation procedures of an educational robot attitude scale (ERAS) developed to measure the attitudes of secondary school students towards the use of humanoid robots in educational settings. The sample of the study comprised of 232 secondary school students. The development and validation process consisted of exploratory factor analysis and convergent validity. The developed scale consists of 17 items and represents four factors of students’ attitude: engagement, enjoyment, anxiety and intention. These four factors accounted for 66% of the total variance of the scale. Internal consistency coefficient for the whole scale was found .90 according to the reliability analysis. The results of the study suggest that the scale is a valid, reliable, and efficient tool for measuring the dimensions of students’ attitudes towards humanoid robots in educational settings.     

Using the Repertory Grid as a Complementary Probe in Eliciting Student Understanding and Attitudes towards Science

Abstract

In previous research, participation in science studies in senior secondary school has been related to both background characteristics of students and to earlier achievements and interests. This paper reports an investigation of participation in combinations of subjects in senior secondary schools in Australia which embody different science orientations. It shows that different combinations of factors shape participation in physical science’ and ‘biological and other science’ types of course. Both are favoured by investigative interest but participation in a physical science course type is strongly associated with high levels of earlier school achievement in numeracy and gender whereas participation in a biological and other science course type is more strongly associated with social background and curriculum influences. In addition the paper suggests that the low participation by females in physical science courses should be interpreted in terms of an interactive influence of gender, earlier achievement and socio‐economic background.     

Understanding motivational structures that differentially predict engagement and achievement in middle school science

Middle school has been documented as the period in which a drop in students’ science interest and achievement occurs. This trend indicates a lack of motivation for learning science; however, little is known about how different aspects of motivation interact with student engagement and science learning outcomes. This study examines the relationships among motivational factors, engagement, and achievement in middle school science (grades 6–8). Data were obtained from middle school students in the United States (N?=?2094). The theoretical relationships among motivational constructs, including self-efficacy, and three types of goal orientations (mastery, performance approach, and performance avoid) were tested. The results showed that motivation is best modeled as distinct intrinsic and extrinsic factors; lending evidence that external, performance based goal orientations factor separately from self-efficacy and an internal, mastery based goal orientation. Second, a model was tested to examine how engagement mediated the relationships between intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors and science achievement. Engagement mediated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and science achievement, whereas extrinsic motivation had no relationship with engagement and science achievement. Implications for how classroom practice and educational policy emphasize different student motivations, and in turn, can support or hinder students’ science learning are discussed.     

Middle School Engagement with Mathematics Software and Later Interest and Self-Efficacy for STEM Careers

Research suggests that trajectories toward careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) emerge early and are influenced by multiple factors. This paper presents a longitudinal study, which uses data from 76 high school students to explore how a student’s vocational self-efficacy and interest are related to his or her middle school behavioral and affective engagement. Measures of vocational self-efficacy and interest are drawn from STEM-related scales in CAPAExplore, while measures of middle school performance and engagement in mathematics are drawn from several previously validated automated indicators extracted from logs of student interaction with ASSISTments, an online learning platform. Results indicate that vocational self-efficacy correlates negatively with confusion, but positively with engaged concentration and carelessness. Interest, which also correlates negatively with confusion, correlates positively with correctness and carelessness. Other disengaged behaviors, such as gaming the system, were not correlated with vocational self-efficacy or interest, despite previous studies indicating that they are associated with future college attendance. We discuss implications for these findings, which have the potential to assist educators or counselors in developing strategies to sustain students’ interest in STEM-related careers.

     

Identifying an Educational Response to the Prevent Policy: Student Perspectives on Learning about Terrorism,Extremism and Radicalisation

School responses to the Prevent agenda have tended to focus primarily on ‘safeguarding’ approaches, which essentially perceive some young people as being ‘at risk’ and potentially as presenting a risk to others. In this article, we consider evidence from secondary school students who experienced a curriculum project on terrorism, extremism and radicalisation. We argue that a curriculum response which addresses the acquisition of knowledge can build students’ critical capacity for engagement with radicalisation through enhanced political literacy and media literacy. We further argue this represents a genuinely educational response to Prevent, as opposed to a more restrictive securitised approach.     

Testing a developmental–ecological model of student engagement: a multilevel latent growth curve analysis

US schools fail to engage a significant proportion of adolescent students. Although student engagement is significantly related to academic achievement, there is a dearth of longitudinal research simultaneously examining the impact of personal and contextual factors on student engagement at both individual and school levels. Using a nationally‐representative sample, multilevel growth curve analyses found significant factors related to adolescents’ student engagement both in initial status and rate of growth. Significant factors at the student level were students’ locus of control, self‐esteem, peer academic value, parental expectation and parent–child communication along with the students’ socio‐economic status, previous grades and friend dropout history. Significant factors at the school level were teacher rules on homework, teacher support, and school safety. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Multidimensional motivation and engagement for writing: construct validation with a sample of boys

Given recent concerns around boys’ literacy, this study examined multidimensional writing motivation and engagement among boys. We explored internal and external validity of 11 adaptive (e.g. self-efficacy for writing) and maladaptive (e.g. disengagement from writing) factors of writing motivation and engagement. The sample comprised 781 male Australian high school students (aged 11–18 years). We used confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling to conduct our analyses. Results confirmed the internal structure of the factors and revealed that parent education, and to a lesser degree language background, predicted several motivation and engagement factors. In addition, the adaptive motivation and engagement factors were associated positively with several writing (e.g. enjoyment of writing) and literacy outcomes (e.g. literacy achievement), whereas the maladaptive factors tended to be negatively associated. Invariance was found in the associations among the motivation and engagement factors and the outcomes across several participant subgroups (e.g. by gender, language background). There was also measurement invariance between the study’s sample and five randomly drawn samples of students from archived data on domain-general academic motivation and engagement. Combined, our analyses shed light on a domain-specific area of motivation and engagement – writing – that could benefit from an integrative multidimensional examination.     

Students embracing change towards more powerful learning environments in vocational education

Students’ educational engagement is both an important predictor of study success and a key preventive factor for dropout. Vocational tracks in secondary education show high dropout rates. There is strong evidence that the solution to educational disengagement lies in student‐centred, powerful learning environments (PLEs). This study investigates characteristics of PLEs from the perspective of students in vocational secondary education. Students’ perspectives on a learning environment are crucial for their satisfaction and learning engagement. Therefore, we investigated whether the perceived learning environment meets the requirements of PLEs, and to what extent it meets students’ preferences. Additionally, it was investigated whether students who perceive their learning environment as more powerful, are also more engaged for school. Survey data of 532 students showed that student perceptions of their current learning environment were largely discrepant from the characteristics of PLEs. Students strongly asked for more challenging learning pathways, in combination with adaptive learning support. Students who perceived the characteristics of PLEs as being present, reported higher satisfaction and stronger engagement than students who perceived their education to be a less powerful environment. There is a need to redesign curricula in vocational education in such a way that these more intensely implement characteristics of PLEs.     

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.     

Predictors of teachers’ use of ICT in school – the relevance of school characteristics,teachers’ attitudes and teacher collaboration

This paper is based on the research question of what predictors (school characteristics, teachers’ attitudes, teacher collaboration and background characteristics) determine secondary school teachers’ frequency of computer use in class. The use of new technologies by secondary school teachers for educational purposes is an important factor regarding school and teaching processes. The use of digital media in schools is, among other things, associated with the goal of supporting learning processes and improving the quality of education. This contribution identifies relevant factors by means of multiple regression analyses of the teachers’ frequency of computer use for instruction in five countries (the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Poland and Germany) to get an idea of how to support the frequency of the use of computers in class. The analyses and findings are based on the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) study of International Computer and Information Literacy Study 2013 (ICILS), which investigates the computer and information literacy (CIL) of secondary school students and the contexts in which students develop CIL in 21 countries. Antecedents concerning school characteristics, teachers’ attitudes and teacher collaboration on the process level and background characteristics of secondary school teachers (N = 8.920) are examined in order to gain further insight into the nature and effect of predictors for secondary school teachers’ in-class use of information and communications technology. The analyses show that there are more country-specific results than similarities between the countries selected. In all countries, antecedents concerning teachers’ attitudes are more relevant for teachers’ in-class use of computers than school characteristics or teacher collaboration on the process level.     

Daily interest,engagement, and autonomy support in the high school science classroom

The current investigation examined relations between high school students’ daily and cumulative situational interest in science class and their engagement, as well as their perceptions of the motivational climate of the classroom. Two-hundred and eighteen high school students in 43 science classes participated in a diary study in which students provided reports of their classroom experiences after each class session for a six-week instructional unit. Multilevel modeling results suggested that interest during science class and behavioral engagement declined over the course of the unit. Daily and cumulative interest during science class predicted behavioral engagement (working hard, participating, and paying attention), cognitive engagement, and agentic engagement. Students’ interest during science class also predicted perceptions that teachers engaged in the motivationally supportive practice of emphasizing student choice during the same and the following class day. Results suggested that the links between interest with working hard and perceptions of choice provision were stronger early in the instructional unit compared to later in the unit. Moreover, some variation was found in these relations depending on students’ gender and ethnicity, as well as depending on the course content and level. Implications for practice, theory, and future research are discussed.     

The effects of teacher-introduced multimodal representations and discourse on students’ task engagement and scientific language during cooperative,inquiry-based science

The study sought to determine the effects of teacher-introduced multimodal representations and discourse on students’ task engagement and scientific language during cooperative, inquiry-based science. The study involved eight Year 6 teachers in two conditions (four very effective teachers and four effective teachers) who taught two units of inquiry-based science across two school terms. The results show that the very effective teachers spent significantly more time engaged in using embodied representations to illustrate points or communicate information. They also spent significantly more time engaged in interrogating students’ understandings and scaffolding and challenging their thinking than the effective teachers. In turn, the students in the very effective teachers’ classes spent significantly more time on-task and used significantly more relevant basic and scientific language to explain the phenomena they were investigating than their peers in the effective teachers’ classes. These are behaviours and language that are associated with successful learning in science.     

Assessing twenty‐first century skills through a teacher created video game for high school biology students

As twenty‐first century skills become a greater focus in K‐12 education, an infusion of technology that meets the needs of today’s students is paramount. This study looks at the design and creation of a Multiplayer Educational Gaming Application (MEGA) for high school biology students. The quasi‐experimental, qualitative design assessed the twenty‐first century skills of digital age literacy, inventive thinking, high productivity, and effective communication techniques of the students exposed to a MEGA. Three factors, as they pertained to these skills, emerged from classroom observations. Interaction with the teacher, discussion with peers, and engagement/time‐on‐task while playing the MEGA suggested that students playing an educational video game exhibited all of the projected twenty‐first century skills while being engrossed in the embedded science content.