服务于高中生未来发展的馆校合作新方式探索

目前科技博物馆教育活动覆盖的主要学龄段集中于小学阶段,高中生受众较少。科技博物馆如何加强与高中学校的合作,吸引高中生参与馆内教育活动,发挥自身教育职能,成为科技博物馆面临的一大挑战。通过梳理国内外案例,笔者认为科技博物馆在升学和就业上能够与学校教育形成互补,助力高中生未来发展,并且总结归纳得出四种服务于高中生未来发展的馆校合作新方式:到馆实习型;动手实验型;专业研究型;课程资源型。最后,本文在分析案例的基础上,结合国内科技博物馆高中学段馆校合作现状,提出可借鉴的意见和建议。     

大学生自我接纳对社交焦虑的影响———拒绝敏感性的中介作用

采用丛中、高文凤自我接纳问卷、交往焦虑量表和拒绝敏感性问卷测量了632名大学生。结果显示：①大学生自我接纳、拒绝敏感性及社交焦虑在性别、年级和专业上存在显著差异;②自我接纳与社会焦虑呈负相关（r=-0．359,P〈0．01）,与拒绝敏感性呈负相关（r=-0．449,P〈0．01）;社会焦虑与拒绝敏感性呈正相关（r=O．319,P％0．01）;③分层回归分析表明,当拒绝敏感性进入回归方程时,自我接纳对社会焦虑的预测效应从-O．359降到-O．270,拒绝敏感性在社交焦虑自我接纳与社交焦虑之间存在着部分中介作用。     

Secondary Students’ Stable and Unstable Optics Conceptions Using Contextualized Questions

This study focuses on elucidating and explaining reasons for the stability of and interrelationships between students’ conceptions about Light Propagation and Visibility of Objects using contextualized questions across 3 years of secondary schooling from Years 7 to 9. In a large-scale quantitative study involving 1,233 Korean students and 1,149 Singaporean students, data were analyzed from responses to the Light Propagation Diagnostic Instrument consisting of four pairs of items, each of which evaluated the same concept in two different problem situations. Findings show that only about 10–45 % of students could apply their conceptions of basic optics in contextualized problem situations giving rise to both stable and unstable alternative conceptions. Students’ understanding of Light Propagation concepts compared with Visibility of Objects concepts was more stable in different problem situations. The concepts of Light Propagation and Visibility of Objects were only moderately correlated. School grade was not a strong predictive variable, but students’ school achievement correlated strongly with their conceptual understanding in optics. The teaching and learning approach and education systems in the two countries may have had some influence on students’ conceptual understanding.     

Measuring Student Attitude and Knowledge in Technology-Rich Biology Classrooms

The use of technology in schools is now ubiquitous, but the effectiveness on the learning environment has mixed results. This paper describes the development and validation of an instrument to measure students’ attitudes toward and knowledge of technology with the aim of investigating any differences based on gender after a course where the science department made use of technology as an integral part of teaching biology. In this study, conducted in one school in the state of New York, in the United States of America, the Students’ Attitudes Toward and Knowledge of Technology Questionnaire was administered to nearly 700 high school science students. A principal component and principal factor analysis resulted in new scales from the validation of the instrument that demonstrated high reliabilities. There were statistically significant gender differences in all the scales of the questionnaire in favor of males.     

Successful Concurrent Programs: An EXCELerate Program in Oklahoma

The article presents the implementation and findings of a successful collaborative effort with the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (OSRHE), Tulsa Community College (TCC), and two local public school districts, Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) and Union Public Schools (UPS). Known as EXCELerate, it's a five-semester dual enrollment pilot program that received state policy exceptions for juniors and seniors to enroll in dual enrollment courses and supportive resources from the participating agencies. Whereas the traditional dual enrollment student is White and college-going, the program's intent was to increase the number of high school students who may be first-generation, lower-socioeconomic, ethnic or non-ethnic. The article identifies three major barriers to successful dual enrollment and completion: state policy, financial issues, and transportation. It also examines how these barriers were eliminated through a collaborative effort. The results demonstrate that over 87% of the juniors and seniors persisted over the semesters, and enrollment tripled among African American and Latino students. The article is constructed to benefit further research and practical application for urban and rural community colleges.     

Development of a Short-Form Measure of Science and Technology Self-efficacy Using Rasch Analysis

Despite an increased focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in U.S. schools, today’s students often struggle to maintain adequate performance in these fields compared with students in other countries (Cheek in Thinking constructively about science, technology, and society education. State University of New York, Albany, 1992; Enyedy and Goldberg 2004; Mandinach and Lewis 2006). In addition, despite considerable pressure to promote the placement of students into STEM career fields, U.S. placement is relatively low (Sadler et al. in Sci Educ 96(3):411–427, 2012; Subotnik et al. in Identifying and developing talent in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM): an agenda for research, policy and practice. International handbook, part XII, pp 1313–1326, 2009). One explanation for the decline of STEM career placement in the U.S. rests with low student affect concerning STEM concepts and related content, especially in terms of self-efficacy. Researchers define self-efficacy as the internal belief that a student can succeed in learning, and that understanding student success lies in students’ externalized actions or behaviors (Bandura in Psychol Rev 84(2):191–215, 1977). Evidence suggests that high self-efficacy in STEM can result in student selection of STEM in later educational endeavors, culminating in STEM career selection (Zeldin et al. in J Res Sci Teach 45(9):1036–1058, 2007). However, other factors such as proficiency play a role as well. The lack of appropriate measures of self-efficacy can greatly affect STEM career selection due to inadequate targeting of this affective trait and loss of opportunity for early intervention by educators. Lack of early intervention decreases selection of STEM courses and careers (Valla and Williams in J Women Minor Sci Eng 18(1), 2012; Lent et al. in J Couns Psychol 38(4), 1991). Therefore, this study developed a short-form measure of self-efficacy to help identify students in need of intervention.     

The Contribution of Attentional Control and Working Memory to Reading Comprehension and Decoding

Little is known about how specific components of working memory, namely, attentional processes including response inhibition, sustained attention, and cognitive inhibition, are related to reading decoding and comprehension. The current study evaluated the relations of reading comprehension, decoding, working memory, and attentional control in 1,134 adolescent students. Path analyses were used to assess the direct and indirect effects of working memory and aspects of attentional control on reading comprehension and decoding. There were significant direct effects of working memory, sustained attention, and cognitive inhibition on reading comprehension, but not decoding. There was a significant direct effect of working memory and response inhibition on decoding, but not comprehension. These results suggest that different aspects of attentional control are important for decoding versus comprehension.     

Why Doers Do—Part 3: External‐Intangible Elements of Human Performance

The externality‐tangibility model of human performance is a human performance technology (HPT) model that categorizes nine all‐inclusive elements of HPT into families of elements that can be external or internal to a performer and tangible or intangible. This third of three installments looks at the two factors that are external to a performer and are intangible: management and leadership. Applying the externality‐tangibility model consistently entails a six‐step process. There are limits to the externality‐tangibility model because it is focused on human performance and not on other factors of organization performance.     

‘It gets narrower’: creative strategies for re-broadening queer peer education

Using collaborative performance ethnography in community- and school-based settings, sex education has the potential to challenge at-risk narratives for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) youth. This paper problematises the youth-led drama project Epic Queer to test the ‘queer’ potential of youth-driven initiatives at the school and community level, and to reject the singularity of victimised and ‘at-risk’ narratives so pervasive in sex education internationally about queer youth. By drawing on the It Gets Better Project as an example of widespread but narrowing social media texts encouraging normativity, deferred pleasure and a happiness narrative, this paper argues for the potential of performance-based arts engagement for re-expanding queer youth subjectivities.     

Domestic abuse prevention education: listening to the views of young people

This paper reports on findings derived as part of a two-year project funded by the European Union's Daphne III scheme, involving collaboration between seven partner organisations across six European countries. The project involved an evaluation, using questionnaires and focus groups, of domestic abuse prevention education programmes delivered in schools in the UK, France and Spain. This paper presents the findings from the UK focus group discussions, conducted with young people aged 10–11 years, and 13–14 years to explore their opinions about the intervention delivered in their school. The focus groups revealed the following challenges for service providers in this area: young people can misunderstand issues related to domestic abuse, especially the role of power and control within relationships; there is a tension between educators giving young people free expression to share their opinions and challenging sexism and other prejudices; and boys can become disengaged with gender-based interventions. These issues point towards three key considerations when implementing a domestic abuse prevention education intervention: programme content (the what); the teaching methods used (the how); and whether teachers or external organisations should deliver the programme (the who).