Understanding The Impact of an Apprenticeship-Based Scientific Research Program on High School Students’ Understanding of Scientific Inquiry

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of an apprenticeship program on high school students’ understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry. Data related to seventeen students’ understanding of science and scientific inquiry were collected through open-ended questionnaires. Findings suggest that although engagement in authentic scientific research helped the participants to develop competency in experimentation methods it had limited impact on participants’ learning of the implicit aspects of scientific inquiry and NOS. Discussion focuses on the importance of making the implicit assumptions of science explicit to the students in such authentic scientific inquiry settings through structured curriculum.     

Modeling and Measuring High School Students’ Computational Thinking Practices in Science

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Despite STEM education communities recognizing the importance of integrating computational thinking (CT) into high school curricula, computation still...     

A Survey on Students’Oral English Ability in High School

Oral communicative ability is of great importance to measure students’English ability.However,it long exists that English course of high schools focuses on grammar.In economically backward cities where high schools don’t treat speaking as a necessity,there is a prevailing phenomenon of high marks but dumb English.Based on the fact above,the author adopts some methods to conduct an investigation among teachers and students in a high school in Shanxi province.After an elaborate collection of data and a comprehensive conclusion of information related to students,the author points out problems existing in students’oral communication in the Grade Two;by analysis,the author points out some possible reasons for these problems;and lastly,the author puts forward some suggestions to these problems accordingly.     

High School Students’ Reasons for Their Science Dispositions: Community-Based Innovative Technology-Embedded Environmental Research Projects

Research in Science Education - The purpose of this investigation was to qualitatively describe high school students’ reasons for their science dispositions (attitude, perception, and...     

Assessing South China (Guangzhou) High School Students’ Views on Nature of Science: A Validation Study

Research on students’ views on nature of science (VNOS) in Asian countries such as China is notably lacking. This study aimed to develop and validate an instrument to measure South China high school students’ VNOS. Based on the previously acquired qualitative data, the instrument included seven VNOS dimensions which reflect the crucial aspects of NOS indicated by the literature and/or the dominating ideology in China (i.e., Marxism). A sample (N = 604) was randomly divided into two groups used for exploratory analyses and confirmatory analyses. The results indicated that the instrument expressed satisfactory reliability and validity and the seven NOS dimensions could be explained by a higher-order dimension. That is, the data of this study supported the multi-dimensional framework that treats VNOS as comprising several more-or-less correlated dimensions. Two distinct dimensions, namely “Accumulative-Empirical Source” and “Pragmatic Justification” which have not been explicitly specified in the past literature, were found. In addition, the Chinese high school students generally held a constructivist/relativist-oriented view of all seven dimensions. Differences in gender and grade level were hardly observed in any dimension of the instrument. The findings are further discussed through a socio-cultural lens to enrich the current understanding of VNOS.     

A Longitudinal Study of Physics Students’ Conceptions of Force in Pre-service Training for High School Teachers

Do physics students in pre-service training to be high-school teachers hold the accepted scientific views that will eventually allow them to plan and implement instructional strategies, which, in turn, will lead their future students to achieve a scientific concept of feree? The results of a longitudinal study dealing with this issue will be discussed in this paper. The most important findings of this study can be summarised as follows. Physics students in pre-service training for high school teachers: (1) mostly do not succeed in abandoning their Aristotelian ‘impetus’ misconception; (2) have difficulties in recognising reaction as a force; (3) are rather ambivalent when referring to the necessity of the forces to be balanced in static situations; (4) hold, to a great extent, the concept that an initial force exerted on an object keeps it going and gradually lessens--the ‘fading-away’ concept; (5) hold, to a great extent, the concept that a force (inertia), resisting a push, acts on moving objects; (6) tend to return in 4th year in college to intuitive views of force, rather than holding the accepted scientific concept.     

Enrollment,Persistence and Graduation of In-State Students at a Public Research University: Does High School Matter?

Educational research has shown that individual-level background characteristics, such as parental socio-economic status and academic ability, influence college going behavior. This study tests for the existence of aggregate-level high school effects on college enrollment, persistence and degree attainment. It links institutional data on students enrolling within a year after graduation from in-state high schools with state data on high schools’ performance and populations. Three high school aggregate-level factors were found to affect enrollment and persistence. Specifically, the high schools’ percent of SAT takers has a concave-shape effect on enrollment, retention and graduation. Additionally, students coming from schools with a higher percent of those receiving free lunch are less likely to persist, and students coming from schools located within a 60 mile radius are more likely to matriculate and to persist to the second year. These results suggest that aggregate-level high school characteristics should be accounted for in enrollment management.

The Effect of Replicating Historical Scientific Apparatus on High School Students’ Attitudes Towards Science and Their Understanding of Nature of Science

Science & Education - For many historians of science and science educators, the method of replicating historical scientific apparatus and experiments provides an avenue for science learning,...     

Grade Level Differences in High School Students’ Conceptions of and Motives for Learning Science

Research in Science Education - Students’ conceptions of learning science and their relations with motive for learning may vary as the education level increases. This study aimed to compare...     

Students’ Learning Experiences in an Early College High School

Early College High Schools (ECHS) are at the forefront of high school reform embodying the principles of rigor, relationship, and relevance. This study examines students’ learning experiences in the context of relationships and rigor at an ECHS. Specifically, I investigate factors that influence students to attend an ECHS, what they attribute to their academic success, and the challenges they experience. I draw upon data from individual and focus group interviews with students at one 3-year-old ECHS in southeastern North Carolina.     

Characterizing High School Students’ Written Explanations in Biology Laboratories

The purpose of this qualitative interpretive research study was to examine high school students’ written scientific explanations during biology laboratory investigations. Specifically, we characterized the types of epistemologies and forms of reasoning involved in students’ scientific explanations and students’ perceptions of scientific explanations. Sixteen students from a rural high school in the Southeastern United States were the participants of this research study. The data consisted of students’ laboratory reports and individual interviews. The results indicated that students’ explanations were primarily based on first-hand knowledge gained in the science laboratories and mostly representing procedural recounts. Most students did not give explanations based on a theory or a principle and did not use deductive reasoning in their explanations. The students had difficulties explaining phenomena that involved intricate cause–effect relationships. Students perceived scientific explanation as the final step of a scientific inquiry and as an account of what happened in the inquiry process, and held a constructivist–empiricist view of scientific explanations. Our results imply the need for more explicit guidance to help students construct better scientific explanations and explicit teaching of the explanatory genre with particular focus on theoretical and causal explanations.     

Is ‘Learning' Science Enough? – A Cultural Model of Religious Students of Science in an Australian Government School

This paper investigates the cognitive experiences of four religious students studying evolutionary biology in an inner city government secondary school in Melbourne, Australia. The participants in the study were identified using the Religious Background and Behaviours questionnaire (Connors, Tonigan, & Miller, 1996 Connors, G. J., Tonigan, J. S., & Miller, W. R. (1996). A measure of religious background and behaviour for use in behaviour change research. Psychology of Addictive Behaviours, 10, 90–96. doi:10.1037/0893-164X.10.2.90[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Participants were interviewed and asked to respond to questions about their cognitive experiences of studying evolutionary biology. Students' responses were analysed using cultural analysis of discourse to construct a cultural model of religious students of science. This cultural model suggests that these students employ a human schema and a non-human schema, which assert that humans are fundamentally different from non-humans in terms of origins and that humans have a transcendental purpose in life. For these students, these maxims seem to be challenged by their belief that evolutionary biology is dictated by metaphysical naturalism. The model suggests that because the existential foundation of these students is challenged, they employ a believing schema to classify their religious explanations and a learning schema to classify evolutionary biology. These schemas are then hierarchically arranged with the learning schema being made subordinate to the believing schema. Importantly, these students are thus able to maintain their existential foundation while fulfilling the requirements of school science. However, the quality of this “learning” is questionable.     

Students’ Perceptions of High School Science: What has Changed Over the Last Decade?

This paper presents comparative questionnaire data from three different samples of Australian high school students in an attempt to see if anything has changed in relation to how they perceive the science they experience in the compulsory years of secondary school (grades 7–10). Questionnaire data were obtained from 1,585 high school students in 2011 and 2,016 students in 2005 and findings are compared with those reported in a national report (Goodrum et al. 2001). Results show significant increases in the frequency with which students report that their science teacher takes notice of their ideas and in the use of computers and the Internet. There have also been changes regarding the rapid provision of feedback, the use of understandable language by teachers and the contextualisation of the new work in terms of work already covered. Little appears to have changed, however, in relation to the teacher-directed pedagogies employed to teach science where there appears to be a higher incidence of copying notes and fewer opportunities for students to investigate topics in which they are interested. The findings suggest that while there have been some positive changes, there are still many students who indicate that the science they experience in secondary school is irrelevant to their everyday life and to their future. It seems that the curiosity and wonder one would hope is associated with studying science is missing for a large proportion of students. It is clear that further actions need to be undertaken to transform this continuing situation.     

School Turnaround Principals: What Does Initial Research Literature Suggest They Are Doing to Be Successful?

As the research literature on principals leading school turnaround grows, determining whether or not real differences between good, even effective, principals and turnaround principals becomes increasingly important. Recent federal government policy and investment established turnaround models that emphasize the role of the school principal, suggesting that turnaround principals do need to be different than other principals in some meaningful ways. But any difference in skill or characteristic remains undefined. For this article, we conducted a systematic review of empirical research literature to identify studies of principals who led successful school turnaround initiatives. We reviewed 18 empirical studies to categorize the education leadership areas in which turnaround principals must excel. We also present the limited evidence regarding attitudes, traits, or perspectives principals leading turnaround should likely possess. Finally, we consider implications of our findings for research and practice.     

An Empirical Study of Senior One High School Students’Cognitive Strategies in Learning English Vocabulary

The present research aims to find out (1) the general vocabulary learning beliefs of Senior One high school students in Guang zhou; (2) the general vocabulary cognitive strategies adopted by Senior One high school students in Guangzhou; (3) the differences be tween successful English learners and unsuccessful English learners in adopting cognitive strategies in their English vocabulary learning. A cohort of 68 Senior One high school students participate in the research. The results of the investigation show that the notion that vocabu lary should be learnt in context and through using is shared by the majority, that the most frequently used vocabulary cognitive strategies are inferencing, note-taking, contextualization and resourcing, that there is no significant difference between the successful English learners and the unsuccessful English learners in using identical vocabulary cognitive strategies.