Exploring Student Reasoning and Representation Construction in School Science Through the Lenses of Social Semiotics and Interaction Analysis

Research in Science Education - The meaning-making practices of science are multimodal and include representational forms such as spoken and written language, diagrams, graphs, equations, and...     

Do University policies make a difference?

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the technical universities have been more successful in facilitating the spillover and commercialization of knowledge. We compare the impact of technical and general universities on the performance of knowledge-based firms. Based on a unique data set consisting of publicly held high technology firms, the empirical evidence suggests that, in fact, firm performance is not influenced by the type of university. Technical universities do not have a differential impact on firm performance from more general universities.     

Effects of a prenatal care intervention for adolescent mothers on birth weight, repeat pregnancy, and educational outcomes at one year postpartum

About one-third of adolescent mothers receive inadequate prenatal care, and babies born to young mothers are more likely to be of low birth weight. The objective of this study is to evaluate a peer-centered prenatal care program for adolescent mothers. Pregnant adolescents were randomly assigned to an experimental or control group in a mastery modeling peer-support intervention designed to improve long- and short-term perinatal outcomes. A sample of 282 urban pregnant adolescents (94% African American, 4% Caucasian, 2% other) participated in the study. Participants were recruited from five clinics located mainly in Detroit, Michigan. Participants in the experimental group received care in a small group setting and learned to perform critical measurements with a peer partner during prenatal visits. Participants in the control group received individual prenatal care in the same clinics. Outcome measures included birth weight, years of schooling completed at one year postpartum, planned and unplanned pregnancy at one year postpartum, and employment and school attendance at one year postpartum. Mothers in the experimental group had a lower rate of low birth weight (6.6% vs. 12.5%, p=0.08). The rate of unplanned pregnancy was also lower for adolescents in the experimental group (13.4% vs. 15.9%), although this difference was not statistically significant. Adolescents who participated in the intervention were more likely to have continued their education during the pregnancy and the postpartum year. The mastery modeling, peer-centered, prenatal care program produced some positive pregnancy outcomes for adolescent mothers.     

Objects prompt authentic scientific activities among learners in a museum programme

Although the scientific disciplines conduct practical work in different ways, all consider practical work as the essential way of connecting objects and phenomena with ideas and the abstract. Accordingly, practical work is regarded as central to science education as well. We investigate a practical, object-based palaeontology programme at a natural history museum to identify how palaeontological objects prompt scientific activity among upper secondary school students. We first construct a theoretical framework based on an analysis of the programme’s palaeontological content. From this, we build our reference model, which considers the specimens used in the programme, possible palaeontological interpretations of these specimens, and the conditions inherent in the programme. We use the reference model to analyse the activities of programme participants, and illustrate how these activities are palaeontologically authentic. Finally, we discuss our findings, examining the mechanism by which the specimens prompt scientific activities. We also discuss our discipline-based approach, and how it allows us to positively identify participants’ activities as authentic. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings.     

2003年奥斯卡之最

“Writers.directors,actors-if we’re stuck here tonightand we run out of food,that’s the order of whom we eat.-Steve Martin,cracking a joke so funny even Harrison FordsmiledBiggest Rationalization(合理化):The producers ofche OscarS decided that the telecast should still go on despite thewar in Iraq.Okay,but we’re warning you:If the producers ofAccording to Jim try to use that excuse,we’re not buying It.Least True Rumor:That Miramax dropped fliers overBeverly Hills urging Academy members to surrender and voteMartin Scorsese for Best Director.Even Less True:Although Saddam Hussein remainsunaccounted for,there is absolutely no truth to the rumor thathis moustache was last seen trying to escape by passing itselt offas Salma Hayek’s Frida-brow.     

Education of deaf children and the politics of recognition

The ideological basis for education of deaf children has changed during the last few decades. In Norway, the new curriculum is emphasizing bilingual and bicultural ideas. In many ways, this can be regarded as an example of what Charles Taylor calls the "politics of recognition." Taking an excerpt of an interview with a deaf student as a point of departure, this article discusses problems when heavily emphasizing a cultural approach.     

The demand for higher education in The Netherlands, 1950–1999

This paper investigates the role of economic factors in the university enrollment decision for the post-war period in The Netherlands. We include those factors standing at the heart of the idea that education is an investment. The econometric results suggest that students are not responsive to tuition fees, but financial support (the sum of loans and grants), the college premium on future labor market earnings, and the alternative wage are important in the enrollment decision.     

Strategic aspects of children’s numerosity judgement

A previous study (Luwel, Verschaffel, Onghena, & De Corte, 2000) revealed that 2^nd and 6^th graders use at least 3 different kinds of strategies for determining different numerosities of blocks presented in square grids: (a) an addition strategy by means of which (groups of) blocks are counted (and added), (b) a subtraction strategy in which the number of empty squares is subtracted from the total number of blocks in the grid (i.e. the anchor), and (c) an estimation strategy, whereby the number of blocks is determined in a quick but imprecise way. Although 6^th as well as 2^nd graders used the clever subtraction strategy, the majority of 2^nd graders had serious trouble with the correct determination of the anchor, resulting in huge numerosity judgement errors. Since this finding seriously complicated the testing of a number of hypotheses in that study, we replicated the above study but presented the children information about the grid size. This manipulation led to a substantial increase in the proportion of appropriate subtraction strategy users and made it possible to investigate the effect of several subject and task variables on the frequency, accuracy, and adaptiveness with which the different strategies were applied. Results are discussed in terms of the conceptual framework of Lemaire and Siegler (1995) regarding strategic change.