Sexuality in the College Years

Many parents find it difficult to communicate with their children about sexuality and sexual decision making, sometimes from lack of adequate information, and partly as a result of the anxiety and self-consciousness that sexual themes elicit. This chapter may help parents better understand some of the issues surrounding sexuality for today's college students. It will: briefly review studies on sexual behaviors of American college students, remark upon unplanned pregnancies, discuss two issues of particular concern for parents-sexually transmitted diseases and homosexuality, and pose questions of university policy with regard to students' sexuality.     

“The very ugly duckling” meets Minecraft: identity work and interpretive competence

Picturebook discussions are commonplace literacy events in contemporary classrooms. The different experiences, backgrounds and ways of being that individual students draw upon during talk around texts prompt a broad range of ways to make, negotiate and share meanings. In addition to developing students' literacy skills such as oral language, vocabulary and comprehension, these discussions have been shown to be instrumental in developing students' interpretive competence which is important for achieving learning outcomes. In this article, we report a study that investigated how four diverse groups of 10‐ and 11‐year‐old students and teachers from two schools experienced such reading events. The study found that making sense of these books was more productive when students were given permission to switch identities and make connections to their out‐of‐school cyber and popular culture worlds. Using discourse analytic techniques, we uncover the identity work during a number of discussions around two different picturebooks and show how this enabled these learners to enter the academic space and demonstrate interpretive competence.     

‘It's a year and then that's me’: masters students' decision‐making

This paper explores the decision‐making of students entering full time UK taught masters degree courses. The findings come from an ongoing research project, Career progression and employability for full time UK resident masters students. Little previous work has focused on these students and their process of transition (however long) from undergraduate studies. Analysis of the data from in‐depth interviews with 24 students from six masters courses across two universities has led to the development of a threefold classification to summarize students' circumstances on entry to their courses. Alongside this, Bourdieu's notions of field, social, cultural and economic capital and habitus have proved valuable in making sense of the data. I argue that students' decisions to pursue full time higher level study are related to their circumstances on application, their dispositions and the resources they have available to them that are relevant to their masters level study. Key differences in the students' circumstances are cross cut by key common themes, suggesting that they bring their prior dispositions to their decision‐making, which is firmly located within the opportunity structures they perceive as relevant to themselves. The complexities of the students' decision‐making appear to be a far cry from the narrow policy notion of students as rational actors seeking economic gain.     

Students' Pedagogical Thinking and the use of ICTs in Teaching

This article discusses students' pedagogical thinking in situations where the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has a (well-defined) pedagogical role and rationale. By analysing students' pedagogical thinking in this setting, it is also possible to better understand their motivations and self-regulation. Pedagogical thinking as viewed from the student's angle is a new area of educational research. Our research method is a combination of the Stimulated Recall interview and the semi-structured theme interview. In addition, some background data were gathered by questionnaire to discern students' different uses of ICTs and their contexts. The findings suggest how the educational use of ICTs is considered to be meaningful and motivating by both genders and among all the interviewed age groups, in spite of the fact that an acute and vocal critique seems to develop among older students. The differences reside in students' reasoning regarding decision making in task operations between genders, which was one of the background variables—girls actively include identity and opinion, while boys emphasize the quality of performance as motives for decisions.     

Science Teachers' Elicitation Practices: Insights for Formative Assessment

In evaluating teachers' instructional decisions during instruction, it is clear that the nature of their elicitation is crucial for student learning. When instructional decisions are informed by information about students' conceptual understanding, significant learning is possible. This article examined the elicitation practices of two high school science teachers who indicated that they made instructional decisions based on the elicited evidence of students' knowledge but whose elicitation practices were characteristic of low-level elicitation. The teachers focused on students' responses that used canonical terms and expressed acceptable knowledge. The teachers demonstrated low-level responsiveness because they did not have full access to students' knowledge. The elicited evidence of students' knowledge that was used in making instructional decisions was not representative of students' conceptual understanding. There was, thus, a mismatch between the teachers' perspectives about their formative assessment practice and what is considered effective formative assessment.     

Students' metacognition during an engineering design project

This study evaluated metacognitive changes of three groups of 160 engineering students working on 60 different design projects. Two metacognitive features, cognitive self‐appraisal and cognitive self‐management, were used to indicate students' metacognitive level. The Engineering Design Project Inventory was used to assess students' metacognition. Students were asked to complete the instrument at the early and final stages of the project. Statistical results revealed a significant change in mechanical engineering students' metacognition while engaged in the project. Eighteen themes of responses that described the influencing factors for the change in students' self‐appraisal and 23 themes of responses that described the influencing factors for their self‐management change were identified from two open‐ended questions.     

Exploring identities to deepen understanding of urban high school students' sexual health decision‐making

Sexual health is a controversial science topic that has received little attention in the field of science education, despite its direct relevance to students' lives and communities. Moreover, research from other fields indicates that a great deal remains to be learned about how to make school learning about sexual health influence the real‐life choices of students. In order to provide a more nuanced understanding of young people's decision‐making, this study examines students' talk about sexual health decision‐making through the lens of identities. Qualitative, ethnographic research methods with twenty 12th grade students attending a New York City public school are used to illustrate how students take on multiple identities in relation to sexual health decision‐making. Further, the study illustrates how these identities are formed by various aspects of students' lives, such as school, family, relationships, and religion, and by societal discourses on topics such as gender, individual responsibility, and morality. The study argues that looking at sexual health decision‐making—and at decision‐making about other controversial science topics—as tied to students' identities provides a useful way for teachers and researchers to grasp the complexity of these decisions, as a step toward creating curriculum that influences them. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:742–762, 2010     

“Seeing Their Eyes in the Rearview Mirror”: Identifying and Responding to Students' Challenging Experiences

There is a noticeable gap in the educational research literature specifically focused on trauma and documenting effective educator practices. This case study captures the voice and perspectives of Mr. Sellers, an effective Black, male educator who, through making sense of the impact of his students' ecological realities, provides insight about trauma, traumatic experiences, and the ways in which he supports them. I conceptualize and name the experiences of these students as traumatic because this is the language that Mr. Sellers himself used to make sense of his students' situations. It is important to note that I focus on these occurrences not to highlight the negatives or deficits of this community; my point in naming these ecological situations is to point out how structural challenges can influence communities and, ultimately, the people (including students) in those contexts. Despite what established literature suggests about the unpreparedness of educators to respond to student trauma, this study documents effective practices of a successful educator in an urban school setting. In particular, the findings in this study offer three takeaways for educators to more adequately identify and respond to students grappling with trauma: (1) context-specific recognition, (2) trauma-conscious approaches, and (3) holistic responsiveness. The findings of this study also suggest that there is a need for broadening educators' capacity, adequately preparing them, and shifting the ways in which schools and policies understand an educator's role.     

Teacher's and Students' Understanding: The Role of Tools and Inscriptions in Supporting Effective Communication

The 2 episodes featured in this issue provide a rich setting in which to investigate not only the influence but also the confluence of students' and teacher's understandings on the quality of whole class discussions. In particular, I focus on the communication between the students and myself as the teacher in the classroom. This unique perspective allows me to offer insights into the teacher's decision-making process and how those decisions influenced the opportunities for learning. As part of the analysis I consider the role of tools in both supporting and constraining communication in the classroom. The analysis therefore makes explicit the tensions in teaching by highlighting the importance of the teacher's understanding of the students' offered explanations and justifications and the mathematics that is to be taught.     

教师与学生的理想学生观念研究--兼论开放型问卷数据的定量分析

学生的理想学生观念反映了学生作为学习者的自我认识,并对其受教育动机和愿望有重要影响,而教师的理想学生观念与教室内主流的教育教学模式紧密相关。研究采用半结构式问卷的方法,让教师和学生罗列出他们认为理想学生应具备的最重要的五项特征。研究结果表明,小学教师和学生的理想学生观念主要体现在学习、道德、行为和身心发展四个类别上,其中学生的理想学生观念中成绩好非常重要,但对学习动机、学习能力和学习习惯的重视程度不高;而教师的理想学生观念中最重要的是学生的品德,教师对学习成绩、学习动机和学习能力的重视程度较高,对学习习惯的重视程度较低。教师与学生的理想学生观念存在差异,且他们的观念与国家课程改革提出的教育目标也存在差异。     

The effect of reflective discussions following inquiry‐based laboratory activities on students' views of nature of science

This research investigated the effect of reflective discussions following inquiry‐based laboratory activities on students' views of the tentative, empirical, subjective, and social aspects of nature of science (NOS). Thirty‐eight grade six students from a Lebanese school participated in the study. The study used a pretest–posttest control‐group design and focused on collecting mainly qualitative data. During each laboratory session, students worked in groups of two. Later, experimental group students answered open‐ended questions about NOS then engaged in reflective discussions about NOS. Control group students answered open‐ended questions about the content of the laboratory activities then participated in discussions of results of these activities. Data sources included an open‐ended questionnaire used as pre‐ and posttest, answers to the open‐ended questions that experimental group students answered individually during every session, transcribed videotapes of the reflective discussions of the experimental group, and semi‐structured interviews. Results indicated that explicit and reflective discussions following inquiry‐based laboratory activities enhanced students' views of the target NOS aspects more than implicit inquiry‐based instruction. Moreover, implicit inquiry‐based instruction did not substantially enhance the students' target NOS views. This study also identified five major challenges that students faced in their attempts to change their NOS views. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 1229–1252, 2010     

An agentive focus may limit learning about complex causality and systems dynamics: A study of seventh graders' explanations of ecosystems

Agent-oriented pedagogies have been used in teaching concepts related to complex systems dynamics. However, little research has systematically explored the role of a strong agency-oriented focus on understanding of complex, dynamic ecological systems. This study analyzed seventh graders' (n = 216) explanations of a complex ecological scenario. The findings show that students were more likely to generate agentive than nonagentive explanations and students who adopted an agentive framing were least likely to understand the complex causal dynamics of two environmental scenarios, eutrophication in a pond and acid rain in a forest. Furthermore, students' initial inclination toward agency-oriented explanation on the assessment was predictive of their performance on a postassessment following an instructional opportunity to learn about ecosystems dynamics; a strong agency orientation corresponded to less complex interpretations of the dynamics of the ecosystems. The results suggest that a strongly agentive perspective may limit students' ability to learn complex systems dynamics and that the pedagogical advantages of agent-based approaches may not be without limitations.     

Hypothetical rape scenarios as a pedagogical device to facilitate students' learning about prosecutorial decision-making and discretion

The use of scenarios to facilitate learning about the complexities of prosecutorial decision-making is a useful pedagogical device for facilitating student learning about sensitive criminal justice issues such as rape or sexual assault. It is also useful in helping instructors gain insight concerning the premises students carry with them into the classroom. Hypothetical rape scenarios were presented to 178 students who were asked to make decisions as to whether or not to pursue prosecution. Findings suggest that race, sex, age, and education play significant roles in students' decision-making processes. Furthermore, as the rape scenario becomes more complicated, demographic factors play a heavier hand in arriving at decisions concerning the disposition of a case.     

How Might a Stage Model of Reading Development be Helpful in the Classroom?

Teachers involved in literacy instruction are continuously involved in decision‐making about the methods of instruction and the curriculum materials to employ with their students, and how to respond to their students' efforts along the road to skilled reading. There are various cues to which they may respond, but recent research suggests that some of these cues are not as useful as was first thought. Further, many teachers consider themselves ill‐equipped by their teacher‐training to make considered decisions in the best interests of all the students in their care. Attention to the stages of reading development can provide a framework for teachers to enable interpretation of student reading performance and appropriate assistance to those in need.     

Model of blogging structure for intercultural communication environments in higher education

It is often observed that most international students are less likely to express their opinions in class. The lack of communicative engagement has negative impacts on students' academic performance. The objective of this article was to explore a range of possible explanations for international students' lack of engagement in class discussions and to seek a way to model how an e-tool could be applied to make international students more comfortable communicating. The present study viewed that those students' communication problems are induced by the following multiple factors: a sense of belonging to a minority, cultural difference, and communication apprehension. Blogs were thus suggested to enhance those students' communication contexts. An ideal model of blogging interactions between students and teachers was theoretically proposed.     

A Sociocultural Analysis of School and Community Settings as Sites for Developing Environmental Practitioners

This article presents analyses of two cultures that emerged from a school/community partnership to develop high school students' competencies as environmental practitioners and serve the needs of a community-based environmental organization. The first culture was situated largely within the school setting, but was linked to the environmental agency through a requirement that students provide service for that organization, which they did primarily through conducting a water quality study to contribute to a watershed management plan. The second culture was situated mostly within the environmental agency itself, and emerged as a group of independent-study students became involved in its daily work. These two activity settings were the units of analysis for delineating salient elements of each culture, and for developing profiles of the types of environmental practitioner identities that were implicit in each. These analyses led to the identification of constraints on students' development within each setting, and then to recommendations for making both cultures more conducive to students' learning and development as environmental practitioners.     

Australian Postgraduate Students' Perceptions,Preferences and Mobility

Postgraduate students' choice of university, and related mobility issues, have been of interest to Australian university researchers, supervisors and administrators for some time. However, with the release of the Commonwealth Government's 1999 Green Paper on research and research training, which proposes greater portability of research student funding, a sense of urgency regarding these issues has developed. This paper reports on students' choice of a particular university for postgraduate research and on what information they made those decisions. A survey was conducted in 1997 of 938 applicants for Postgraduate Research Scholarships to Flinders University, Macquarie University and the Universities of Western Australia, Adelaide and Melbourne. The survey sought to identify respondents' choices and possible movement to undertake research awards. Questions dealt with a wide range of issues with a particular focus on sources used to access information on higher degrees, preference(s) for where they wished to study, factors leading to their preferred choice, and influences on the decision to move or not move to another institution. Approximately 50% of respondents were younger than 25 years and only 27% were living with their parents. An Honour's degree was the most common prior qualification for students (73%), but only 61% were enrolling directly from their previous degree. Thirty-six per cent reported that they regularly read their main local paper for information related to postgraduate research opportunities and 39% of respondents did not regularly access any source of media for postgraduate information. Forty-two per cent of students did not explore any opportunities at other universities prior to making their decision about enrolment. Almost all students who were planning to enrol at the same university were remaining in the same department. Commensurate with this, 73% reported that their Honour's supervisor or academic staff in their original university were their major source of information on study destinations. These results provide baseline data, which can be used to approach the issue of postgraduate mobility more strategically.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Educators have invested considerable effort in developing environmental education programs that address students' knowledge, attitudes, and action competence regarding environmental issues. The authors explore the effectiveness of such programs in terms of both student learning outcomes and the intergenerational influence that results when students discuss their learning experiences with their parents and other community members. Six environmental education programs involving 284 students in Queensland schools, from Grades 5-12, were investigated. Students and their parents were surveyed and interviewed regarding their perceptions about the program, the program's influence on their environmental learning, and the extent and nature of discussions that the program stimulated between students and their parents. The authors draw conclusions about key features that should be incorporated into environmental education programs to encourage and empower students to bring about environmental change in their homes and communities.     

Personal Context and Continuity of Human Thought as Recurrent Themes in a Longitudinal Study

The present study of personal context and continuity in 23 students' thinking builds upon data from a longitudinal study of the students' conceptualisations of ecological processes. Each student was interviewed 11 times from age 9-15 about these processes. At the ages of 15 and 19, the students listened to what they said at the age of 11 and 15, respectively, and described how they thought their understanding had developed. The occurrence of charac teristic individual elements in the students' conceptions can be followed as themes in the interviews year by year. The students could, as 15- and 19-year-olds, often reveal concrete experiences from an early age that they referred to repeatedly in the interviews. Even if there was a substantial conceptual development, there was also a very strong element of personal continuity. Conceptions that had developed at an early age seemed to be important for future conceptual development.