Monitoring comprehension in a foreign language: Trait or skill?

Metacognition and Learning - Success in higher education is highly dependent on students’ ability to efficiently read and comprehend large amounts of text in the speaker’s first/native...     

The smallest meaningful sample of classroom transactions

In order to explore the question of the number of observations necessary to obtain a trustworthy sample of classroom transactions, the data from an existing study were reanalyzed. Sixteen teachers, all of whom were trained to use the materials and procedures of the Science Curriculum Improvement Study, were observed four times with a five-category system which classified teacher questions. In this sample, teachers were extremely variable across occasions. The reliability of a single observation was zero for four of the five variables. For the fifth variable, asking students to hypothesize, it was estimated that 11 to 20 observations would be necessary to obtain a stable mean score for each teacher.     

Exploring the effects of cognitive conflict and direct teaching for students of different academic levels

Despite inconclusive evidence regarding the effectiveness of cognitive conflict, educators still consider it a significant instructional strategy. One of the challenges of current research is to study the conditions under which cognitive conflict is effective. This research examines the notion that cognitive conflict may have dissimilar effects for students of different academic levels. The study compares the effectiveness of teaching the control of variables thinking strategy to students of two academic levels (low vs. high) by two different teaching methods [inducing a cognitive conflict (ICC) vs. direct teaching (DT)]. One hundred twenty‐one students who learned in a heterogeneous school were divided into four experimental groups in a 2 × 2 design. Results show no main effect of teaching method but do show a significant interaction effect between level of students and teaching method. The findings show that students with high academic achievements benefited from the ICC teaching method while the DT method hindered their progress. In contrast, students with low academic achievements benefited from the DT method while the ICC teaching method hindered their progress. The interaction effect was preserved in a retention test that took place 6 months after instruction. The findings show that previous inconclusive findings regarding the effectiveness of the ICC method can be explained by its contradictory effects on students of different academic levels. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 829–855, 2005     

Sexual harassment in Jewish and Arab public schools in Israel

OBJECTIVE: Current empirical literature on sexual harassment in schools is mostly based on nonrepresentative samples of middle-class high-school Caucasian female students. Thus the scope of research regarding gender, age, and cultural differences is very limited. This article reports on findings on sexual harassment in Jewish and Arab schools in Israel with regard to gender, age, and cultural differences. METHOD: The study is part of the first national survey on school violence in Israel. The representative sample includes 10,400 students in grades 7 through 11 attending public schools in Israel. Students were asked to report whether they were victims of specific acts of sexual harassment in school during the month before the survey. RESULTS: Overall, 29.1% of the students were victims of at least one act of harassment. The more common acts were to show offensive pictures or to send obscene letters, to take off or to try to take off part of the student's clothing, and to try to kiss a student. The most vulnerable groups are the Arab boys and 8th grade students. Report rates were the lowest among Arab girls. CONCLUSIONS: Sexual harassment is prevalent in Israeli schools. The pattern of victimization is different for boys and girls and for students in Jewish and Arab schools. These patterns are a complex phenomenon that must be considered in the intervention and policy measures addressing sexual harassment at school.     

Cloud Pedagogy: Utilizing Web-Based Technologies for the Promotion of Social Constructivist Learning in Science Teacher Preparation Courses

The new guidelines for science education emphasize the need to introduce computers and digital technologies as a means of enabling visualization and data collection and analysis. This requires science teachers to bring advanced technologies into the classroom and use them wisely. Hence, the goal of this study was twofold: to examine the application of web-based technologies in science teacher preparation courses and to examine pre-service teachers’ perceptions of “cloud pedagogy”—an instructional framework that applies technologies for the promotion of social constructivist learning. The study included university teachers (N = 48) and pre-service science teachers (N = 73). Data were collected from an online survey, written reflections, and interviews. The findings indicated that university teachers use technologies mainly for information management and the distribution of learning materials and less for applying social constructivist pedagogy. University teachers expect their students (i.e., pre-service science teachers) to use digital tools in their future classroom to a greater extent than they themselves do. The findings also indicated that the “cloud pedagogy” was perceived as an appropriate instructional framework for contemporary science education. The application of the cloud pedagogy fosters four attributes: the ability to adapt to frequent changes and uncertain situations, the ability to collaborate and communicate in decentralized environments, the ability to generate data and manage it, and the ability to explore new venous.     

Analysis of student activity in web-supported courses as a tool for predicting dropout

Persistence in learning processes is perceived as a central value; therefore, dropouts from studies are a prime concern for educators. This study focuses on the quantitative analysis of data accumulated on 362 students in three academic course website log files in the disciplines of mathematics and statistics, in order to examine whether student activity on course websites may assist in providing early identification of learner dropout from specific courses or from degree track studies in general. It was found in this study that identifying the changes in student activity during the course period could help in detecting at-risk learners in real time, before they actually drop out from the course. Data examination on a monthly basis throughout the semester can enable educators and institutions to flag students that have been identified as having unusual behavior, deviating from the course average. It was found that a large percentage of students (66%) who had been marked as at-risk actually did not finish their courses and/or degree. The presented analysis allows instructors to observe website student usage data during a course, and to locate students who are not using the system as expected. Furthermore, it could enable university decision makers to see the information on a campus level for initiating intervention programs.     

Sleep disturbances in adolescents with symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

We evaluated 32 nonmedicated male adolescents diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in childhood, 35 male adolescents similarly diagnosed who were receiving methylphenidate (MPH), and 77 control boys. Both ADHD groups completed self-report questionnaires assessing sleep disturbances; weekday and holiday sleep duration; and symptoms of ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Parents and teachers rated the severity of the participants' ADHD. The control group completed self-report questionnaires assessing sleep disturbances. We found that nonmedicated participants and controls did not differ in the severity of sleep disturbance. In contrast, the medicated participants demonstrated a significantly greater severity of sleep disturbance compared with the nonmedicated participants and reported elevated levels of symptoms of ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Specific analyses showed that depressive symptoms contributed significantly to the degree of sleep disturbance when controlling for ADHD diagnosis and MPH treatment. These findings suggest that among adolescents with ADHD symptoms, the severity of symptoms of depression may contribute to the degree of sleep disturbance in addition to the effect of their primary disorder and MPH treatment.     

Connected Knowledge in Science and Mathematics Education

While the traditional meaning of connected knowledge is valuable in some school subjects, it does not address the main activities of knowledge acquisition in subjects such as physics and mathematics. The goal of this article is to analyze the relationships between the concepts “learning for understanding” and “connected knowledge”, a central theme in feminist epistemology. In learning for understanding, the learner forms multiple, intricate connections among the concepts she is studying in school, between school concepts and her everyday concepts, and between school concepts and their wider context. Viewing connected knowledge as tightly related to understanding has several important implications. It brings connected knowledge into the central learning activities that take place in school science and mathematics, and gives it a high status. It contributes to our understanding of gender‐related patterns in thinking; and it may form a unifying theoretical framework for many studies and projects in the field of gender fair education.     

Identifying meta‐clusters of students' interest in science and their change with age

Nearly 6,000 science questions collected from five different web‐based, TV‐based and school‐based sources were rigorously analyzed in order to identify profiles of K‐12 students' interest in science, and how these profiles change with age. The questions were analyzed according to their topic, thinking level, motivation for and level of autonomy in raising the question, the object of interest and its magnitude, and psychological distance of the object in question from the asker. Characteristics of the asker, such as gender, grade level, and country of origin were also considered, alongside characteristics of the data source, such as language, setting (Internet, school, TV), and the potential science‐attentiveness of the users. Six meta‐clusters of children's and adolescents' interest in science were identified using cluster analysis of their self‐generated science questions. A developmental shift in interest from non‐classical to classical school science subjects was noted. Other age‐related developments, such as an increase in thinking level as reflected by the questions, a decrease in organization level and the psychological distance of the object in question with age were also explored. Advantages and shortcomings of web‐based data collection for educational research are discussed, as are the implications of the results obtained using this methodology for formal science education. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 999–1022, 2009     

Variables that influence the environmental behavior of adults

This study focuses on understanding the factors that encourage adults’ environmental behavior. This mixed approach methodology study used 10 Likert type questionnaires to collect data about nine cognitive and affective components that might influence environmental behavior. The qualitative data was collected through open questions and interviews. The main sample included 656 participants from amongst Israel’s working population. The questionnaires were found both reliable and valid. Most of the explored cognitive and affective aspects appeared to act as predictors of environmental behavior. The study indicates that environmental behavior is driven by ‘egoistic’ concerns rather than by altruistic views and motivations.