Comparison of learning in two context-based university chemistry classes

ABSTRACT

Context-based learning (CBL) is advocated as beneficial to learners, but more needs to be understood about how different contexts used in courses influence student outcomes. Gilbert defined several models of context that appear to be used in chemistry. In one model that achieves many criteria of student meaning-making, the context is provided by ‘personal mental activity’, meaning that students engage in a role to solve a problem. The model’s predicted outcomes are that students develop and use the specialised language of chemistry, translate what they learn in the immediate context to other contexts, and empathise with the community of practice that is created. The first two of these outcomes were investigated in two large-enrolment university chemistry courses, both organised as this CBL model, in which students were introduced to kinetic molecular theory (KMT). Sample 1 students (N₁?=?105) learned KMT through whole-class kinaesthetic activity as a human model of a gas while focusing on a problem identifying substances in balloons filled with different gases. Sample 2 students (N₂?=?110) manipulated molecular dynamics simulations while focusing on the problem of reducing atmospheric CO₂. Exam answers and pre-/post-test responses, involving a new KMT context, were analysed. Students in Sample 1 demonstrated a stronger understanding of particle trajectories, while Sample 2 students developed more sophisticated mechanistic reasoning and greater fluidity of translation between contexts through increased use of chemists’ specialised language. The relationships of these outcomes to the contexts were examined in consideration of the different curriculum emphases inherent in the contexts.     

Differences in pupil achievement in Kenya: Implications for policy and practice

In this study the authors employed multilevel analyses procedures to examine pupil, class and school levels factors that influenced pupil achievement in Kenya.Pupil's age, pupil's socioeconomic background and pupil–teacher ratio were important factors in the prediction of pupil achievement. The provinces with the largest between-school variation were Eastern and Rift Valley. Low social equity was evident in Nyanza, Nairobi and Western while large gender inequities were evident in North Eastern. Implications of the findings for policy and practice are outlined.     

The ISPI HPT model applied to a university television broadcast system upgrade

This is a case study describing the application of the traditional ISPI human performance technology (HPT) model at CHWK, a campus television channel broadcast from a southeastern American university cable system. CHWK's issues with delivery options, labor‐intense work flow, and continual staff training were identified as the performance problems. Computerization of the system, including the installation of new hardware and data processing methods, was recommended as the intervention to solve the performance problem.     

Conditions influencing rural and town women's participation in the labor force : Some important considerations

This paper suggests that changes in the basic conditions of subsistence of Bangladeshi families, particularly increasing destitution and landlessness, are prime factors in forcing increasing numbers of rural and urban women into the wage sector of the economy. It has been found that as an initial step towards women's control over their own lives, participation in the labor force may be considered an advance for women in comparison to previous forms of labor. It is suggested, however, that the patterning of wage labor in less developed capitalist countries, to the extent that it follows Western trends, has every possibility of duplicating in Bangladesh the structures of women's exploitation and differential income earning opportunities hindering women's development in other countries, It is also suggested that traditional forms of social control legitimating and governing the subordination of women in Bangladesh are being undermined by worsening socio-economic conditions. It has been found that the traditional system controlling women's subordination, which is known as purdah, may be losing saliency for increasing numbers of rural families. This leads one to conclude that the development and extension of a wage economy brings new forms of social control involving contradictory results, exploitation, and dependence on the one hand, and changing conditions of independence and control on the other.