Correlates of school-day physical activity in preschool students

This study examined the relationship among sex, body mass index, motor skill competence (MSC), perceived physical competence (PPC), and school-day physical activity in preschool students (N = 34). Physical activity was assessed by steps accumulated during the school day, while MSC and PPC were assessed with the Test of Gross Motor Development-2nd edition (Ulrich, 2000) and the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (Harter & Pike, 1984). Regression analyses revealed that preschool students' locomotor ability accounted for 21 % (p = .007) of the variance associated with school-day physical activity. The findings support an association between participants' ability to locomote and be physically active. The findings warrant future investigations to examine the relationship between locomotor skills and physical activity behaviors.     

Habitus, social fields, and circuits in rural science education

Schooling and science education are embedded within larger socio-cultural, political and economic contexts, influenced by global flows of capital, labor, ideas, and images. In this article we consider the ways in which ethnography traces the web of interactions (circuits), in a rural community and the ways that science inquiry was associated with character education. Our discussion examines the relationship between social fields, habitus, and meritocracy under new and ever-changing neoliberal conditions. These macro-level forces play out in everyday practices in the community and reveal schools, as well as science education, as sites for struggle.     

A rural math, science, and technology elementary school tangled up in global networks of practice

This is an ethnographic study of a newly created math, science, and technology elementary magnet school in a rural community fiercely committed to cultural preservation while facing unprecedented economic instability brought on by massive loss of manufacturing jobs. Our goal was to understand global- and community-level contexts that influenced the school’s science curriculum, the ways the school promoted itself to the community, and the implicit meanings of science held by school staff, parents and community members. Main sources of data were the county’s newspaper articles from 2003 to 2006, the school’s, town’s, and business leaders’ promotional materials, and interviews with school staff, parents, and community members. A key finding was the school’s dual promotion of science education and character education. We make sense of this “science with character” curriculum by unpacking the school and community’s entanglements with historical (cultural preservation), political (conservative politics, concerns for youth depravity), and economic (globalization) networks. We describe the ways those entanglements enabled certain reproductive meanings of school science (as add-on, suspect, and elitist) and other novel meanings of science (empathetic, nurturing, place-based). This study highlights the school as a site of struggle, entangled in multiple networks of practice that influence in positive, negative, and unpredictable ways, the enacted science curriculum.     

Lab Work and Learning in Secondary School Chemistry: The Importance of Teacher and Student Interaction

Laboratory work is considered essential in promoting students’ learning of science and of scientific inquiry. What the students perceive as important to learn from a regular laboratory exercise is probably affected by the teacher’s objectives. We study the extent to which one teacher’s objectives are fulfilled during lab work, and how teacher–student and student–student interactions contribute to developing learning experiences from the laboratory exercise. Do students encounter opportunities to learn in agreement with the teacher’s objectives? This explanatory single case study includes use of a palette of methods, such as pre- and post-interviews, observations and video documentation from an experienced secondary school teacher and her 8th grade (aged 13–14) students’ laboratory work. Our results point to the importance of teacher involvement to help students understand what to look for, how to do it and why. Especially teacher–student interactions during lab work seemed to influence what students perceived as important to learn. In the laboratory exercise in this case, the teacher helped the students to observe and to use their observations in their explanations. The lab work included learning experiences other than those addressed by the teacher, and the teacher’s intentions were partially fulfilled. Not only what the teacher says, but also how the teacher acts is important to help students understand what to learn from a laboratory exercise.     

A Quasi-Experimental Study of Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy and Offspring Academic Achievement

The current study, based on all births in Sweden from 1983 to 1991 ( N  =   654,707), explored the processes underlying the association between smoking during pregnancy (SDP) and offspring school grades and mathematic proficiency at age 15. The analyses compared relatives who varied in their exposure to SDP and who varied in their genetic relatedness. Although SDP was statistically associated with academic achievement (AA) when comparing unrelated individuals, the results suggest that SDP does not cause poorer academic performance, as full siblings differentially exposed to SDP did not differ in their academic scores. The pattern of results suggests that genetic factors shared by parents and their offspring help explain why offspring exposed to SDP have lower levels of AA.     

Cognitive validity of students’ self-reports of classroom mastery goal structure: What students are thinking and why it matters

Cognitive interviews were employed to systematically examine the cognitive validity of self-report survey items extensively used to assess classroom mastery goal structure. In a sample of elementary and middle school students, items were identified that functioned according to their intended meaning and those eliciting less accurate interpretations as conceptually defined by mastery goal structure cognitive validity criteria. Evidence suggested that items framed to focus on students’ teachers (i.e., teacher goals) were more cognitively valid than were items that focused students on their classroom context. Items with abstract terms yielded less accurate interpretations. We discuss implications of determining the cognitive validity of scales used to assess achievement goal structure and related self-report instruments.