Anatomy: Spotlight on Africa

Anatomy departments across Africa were surveyed regarding the type of curriculum and method of delivery of their medical courses. While the response rate was low, African anatomy departments appear to be in line with the rest of the world in that many have introduced problem based learning, have hours that are within the range of western medical schools and appear to be well resourced. Human body dissection is a constant and strong aspect of the majority of the courses surveyed. The staff to student ratio appears to be relatively high in Africa, but in many of the responding African institutions, there appears to be little difficulty in attracting suitable faculty (including those who are medically qualified) to teach anatomy. Retaining this faculty, in some cases, may be difficult because of a global demand for anatomy educators. Anat Sci Ed 1:111–118, 2008. © 2008 American Association of Anatomists.     

Cognitive and Psychological Factors Underlying Secondary School Students' Feelings Towards Group Work

ABSTRACT Two-hundred-and-ninety secondary school students from Years 7, 9 and 11 completed questionnaires relating to motivational goals, metacognitive awareness, need for affiliation, social anxiety and feelings towards group work. Factor analysis revealed three attitudes towards participation in group work: a preference for group environments, a preference for individual work environments, and a sense of discomfort in group environments. Students reporting a preference for group work also indicated higher levels of sociability, lower levels of social anxiety, stronger mastery and performance goals, and greater levels of metacognitive awareness. Students expressing a preference for individual work environments reported lower levels of sociability and higher levels of social anxiety, but were not differentiated on any of the cognitive measures. Students reporting discomfort in groups similarly reported enhanced levels of social anxiety combined with lower levels of sociability, but also indicated lower levels of metacognitive awareness. Results are discussed in the context of current theoretical and empirical work on group-based learning.     

Children's drawing and painting from a cognitive perspective: a longitudinal study

This paper describes a longitudinal study undertaken with 40 pre‐schoolers during their last six months in an early childhood centre and their first six months at school. The study presents an investigation of the pathways that child drawers and painters make towards representational depictions. As such its primary focus is on cognitive processes. Monthly samples of 40 children's drawings and paintings were collected over a 12‐month period that included the children's transition into formal schooling. CrossTabs analysis showed that the relevant cognitive abilities tended to present in clusters and that patterning may be a serious component both in its own right, as well as in facilitating representational depictions, as previously claimed by Booth.     

Challenging Masculinity and Using Sexuality

Drawing from ethnographic research this paper focuses on how sexuality is deployed in regulative and tactical forms within Further Education. It examines how masculinity is institutionalised through the internal discourses of education. It demonstrates how, on the basis of the normalisation of masculinity, male teachers are able to regulate female students through the sexualising of situations. The resentment generated by being forced to confront their educational and feminine powerlessness leads the female students to develop a number of different coping tactics. One of these is a transformative attack on masculine hegemony whereby female students take up masculine subject positions and use strategies of masculinity to control male teachers. It argues that the refusal to give legitimacy and consent to masculine regulation, in education, on the basis of a cost‐benefit analysis, could engender challenges across the sites, thereby necessitating reconstructions of masculine power.     

TEACHING AND LEARNING ABOUT MATTER IN GRADE 6 CLASSROOMS: A CONCEPTUAL CHANGE APPROACH

The purpose of this study was to enhance the teaching and learning of matter and its properties for grade 6 students. The development of a conceptual change approach instructional unit was undertaken for this purpose. Pre- and post-concept surveys, classroom observations, and student and teacher interviews were used to collect data. The teaching activities not only challenged and encouraged students’ conceptual change but also indicated that teachers needed to develop their content knowledge and teaching strategies. The participants developed more scientific conceptions and were able to apply these in appropriate contexts. This study illustrates how a conceptual change approach can be accomplished in the Thai context.