Training Future Scientists: Predicting First-year Minority Student Participation in Health Science Research

Using longitudinal data from the UCLA Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) and Your First College Year (YFCY) surveys, this study examines predictors of the likelihood that science-oriented students would participate in a health science undergraduate research program during the first year of college. The key predictors of participation in health science research programs are students’ reliance on peer networks and whether campuses provide structured opportunities for first-year students even though only 12% of freshmen in the sample engaged in this activity. These experiences are particularly important for Black students. The findings inform efforts to orient students at an early stage, particularly under-represented minorities, toward biomedical and behavioral science research careers.

Exploring Young Children’s Understanding About the Concept of Volume Through Engineering Design in a STEM Activity: A Case Study

This case study explores young children’s understanding and application of the concept of volume through the practices of engineering design in a STEM activity. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, engineering stands out as a challenging area to implement. In addition, most early engineering education research centers on curriculum and instruction rather than students’ understanding and application of models and content knowledge to a design project (Johri and Olds, Journal of Engineering Education, 100(1):151–185, 2011). For this study, we created a play-based STEM activity which helps students understand and apply the concept of volume in creating clay boats through the practices of engineering design. Three students voluntarily participated in this study. Data sources included interviews, photocopies of boats, and observation field notes which were analyzed using a comprehensive cross-case analysis. Findings indicate that the common pattern is rather intuitive when students define engineering problems using different criteria. Also, students’ solutions to engineering problems are associated with their experiential ideas of reality. How students express their understanding of volume is correlated to the way of their structuring volume. Lastly, students understand the concept of volume gradually while going through the practices of engineering design. Implications are discussed in terms of how engineering education contributes to students’ understanding of volume.     

Exploring the Use of Lesson Study to Develop Elementary Preservice Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching Nature of Science

This study explored a modified version of Japanese Lesson Study to determine whether and how it influenced preservice elementary teachers in their abilities to deliver science lessons that included nature of science (NOS) to their own students. We used a case study approach that focused on one subset of a cohort of preservice elementary teachers within their field placement settings. Data sources included lesson plans, lesson feedback forms, videotapes of delivered lessons, and videotapes of lesson study feedback sessions. Early in the semester peers provided feedback on content, and later in the semester peers provided feedback on classroom management as well as content during the lesson study feedback sessions. We found that preservice elementary teachers were able to provide feedback to their peers regarding how to include NOS in their science lessons, yet did not naturally included NOS connections within their own lessons.     

Latent class analysis of non-formal learners’ self-directed learning patterns in open educational resource repositories

Open educational resources (OERs) are increasingly adopted in non-formal education contexts. However, little research has been conducted to investigate the self-directed learning patterns of non-formal learners using OERs. A lack of knowledge about non-formal learners precludes discussions on how to support their self-regulated learning in open learning environments. We explored the self-directed learning patterns of 1892 non-formal online learners who were using OER repositories. In addition, we examined whether differences existed in future intentions to use OERs between learners with different learning patterns. Four latent classes were identified, and learners’ age was found to affect class membership. We also found that non-formal learners’ use of self-directed learning strategies predicted their future intentions to use OERs. This study advanced our understanding of the subpopulations of non-formal learners using OERs. Future research will benefit from the findings related to designing OER environments that can accommodate diverse self-directed learners.     

The values and virtues promoted in the proposed seventh course of study in civic education: implications for democratic citizenship and democratic citizenship education in Korea

Citizenship education in South Korea has entered a new era in terms of the course of study. The seventh course of study in civic education introduces the conception of civic virtue for school education. The identification of the ten civic virtues is a remarkable first attempt in the history of the course of study. This study, which assumes that civic virtue must be a key concept in civic education, welcomes the idea of civic virtue, since it can act as a solvent on the citizen knowledge-oriented approach of citizenship education. Nevertheless, there are some problems with the identification of the civic values and virtues, and this study argues that those civic virtues selected for the school curriculum are mostly not civic, nor clearly vital to a liberal democracy.     

Why do we need to employ Bayesian statistics and how can we employ it in studies of moral education?: With practical guidelines to use JASP for educators and researchers

In this article, we discuss the benefits of Bayesian statistics and how to utilize them in studies of moral education. To demonstrate concrete examples of the applications of Bayesian statistics to studies of moral education, we reanalyzed two data sets previously collected: one small data set collected from a moral educational intervention experiment, and one big data set from a large-scale Defining Issues Test-2 survey (DIT). The results suggest that Bayesian analysis of data sets collected from moral educational studies can provide additional useful statistical information, particularly that associated with the strength of evidence supporting alternative hypotheses, which has not been provided by the classical frequentist approach focusing on P-values. Finally, we introduce several practical guidelines pertaining to how to utilize Bayesian statistics, including the utilization of newly developed free statistical software, Jeffrey’s Amazing Statistics Program (JASP), and thresholding based on Bayes Factors (BF), to scholars in the field of moral education.     

Student engagement and classroom variables in improving mathematics achievement

The study explored how much student engagement and classroom variables predicted student achievement in mathematics. Since students were nested within a classroom, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was employed for the analysis. The results indicated that student engagement had positive effects on student academic growth per month in math after taking into account student variables such as gender, SES, race, and interaction effects. The effects of student engagement are consistent regardless of minority and gender. Among classroom level variables such as teachers’ degree, experience, certification, authentic instruction, content coverage, and class size, there is no significant predictor of student math achievement growth. The findings suggest that student engagement should be emphasized in a school and educational policy for students’ success in a school.     

The teacher efficacy for inclusive practices (TEIP) scale: dimensionality and factor structure

The Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices (TEIP) scale is designed to measure teacher‐self efficacy to teach in inclusive classrooms. The original study identified three scale factors: efficacy in using inclusive instruction (EII), efficacy in collaboration (EC), and efficacy in managing behavior (EMB) (Sharma et al., 2012). The purpose of our study was to examine the TEIP scale for dimensionality and to cross‐validate its factor structure for pre‐service teachers in the context of early childhood education. A bifactor model fit to the data revealed that the TEIP scale is essentially unidimensional, that is, there is one dominant latent factor and the originally found three scale factors (EII, EC, and EMB) represent specific aspects of the general factor of teacher self‐efficacy to teach in inclusive classrooms. Along with providing validation evidence, these findings have important implications for the scoring on the TEIP scale using classical test analysis or unidimensional item response theory models.