The development of dynamic inquiry performances within an open inquiry setting: A comparison to guided inquiry setting

Dynamic inquiry learning emphasizes aspects of change, intellectual flexibility, and critical thinking. Dynamic inquiry learning is characterized by the following criteria: learning as a process, changes during the inquiry, procedural understanding, and affective points of view. This study compared the influence of open versus guided inquiry learning approaches on dynamic inquiry performances among high‐school biology students. We hypothesized that open inquiry students who engage in the inquiry process from its initial stage, participating in the decision making process of asking inquiry questions and planning all aspects of the inquiry, will outperform students who experienced guided inquiry, in terms of developing dynamic inquiry performances. Students were divided into two groups: guided and open inquiry learning approaches. Both groups were followed throughout their 2‐year inquiry learning process. The data sources included interviews, students' inquiry summary papers, logbooks, and reflections. A quantitative content analysis of the two groups, using a dynamic inquiry performances index, revealed that open inquiry students used significantly higher levels of performances in the criteria “changes during inquiry” and “procedural understanding.” However, the study's results indicated no significant differences in the criteria “learning as a process” and “affective points of view.” The implementation of dynamic inquiry performances during inquiry learning may shed light on the procedural and epistemological scientific understanding of students conducting inquiries. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 1137–1160, 2009     

The effects of abuse history on sexually intrusive behavior by children: An analysis of child justice records

Objectives

A commonly cited risk factor for sexually intrusive behavior (SIB) among children and adolescents is a history of abuse. Based on a large and non-clinical nationwide sample of children who were investigated as abuse victims and suspects of SIBs in Israel over a decade, the present study examines the rate of abuse history among child suspects who have admitted SIBs. In addition, this study compares some personal and family characteristics as well as selected aspects of SIBs reported by children with and without a history of abuse. Abuse history is then used to predict the nature of SIBs after controlling for other predictors.

Methods

National data files of the investigation of alleged child victims and child suspects aged 14 or under were electronically merged, allowing the identification of a sub-group of suspects, out of all suspects, who had a record of child abuse. Using only confirmed cases of boys with SIBs, child suspects with a record of abuse were compared to the larger group of child suspects with no record of abuse.

Results

Of 3,554 child suspects of SIBs, 345 or 9.7% had a formal record of abuse. Boys with a record of abuse engaged in SIBs at a younger age; were more likely to display mental disabilities; more often belonged to large size, single-parent, low SES, and immigrant families and were more likely to be removed from home to alternative care than boys with no record of abuse. The nature of SIBs varied across the groups, with victim-suspects more likely than their counterparts to act repeatedly, and to do so alone rather than in the presence of others. Victim-suspects were more likely to involve in SIBs with younger children, with siblings, and with unrelated children. Most aspects of SIBs were predicted by abuse history after controlling for other predictors, with some differences between age groups being evident.

Conclusions

Although abuse history is uncommon among children displaying SIBs in this sample, it seems to affect the involvement of children at a younger age in more severe SIBs, posing a higher risk to other children.

Practical implications

The low rate of abuse history among boys with SIBs suggests that clinical assessors of SIBs in children should not assume that these children have been victims of abuse or that abuse is a necessary component in the development of SIBs. This implies that the exploration of past abuse in the assessment of children with SIBs is not always relevant and that trauma-related components in the treatment of these children should be selective. As past-abuse is less related to SIB's for older children, the clinical focus on abuse is even less relevant for older children. However, when boys with SIBs have been past-victims, they seem to be in greater need for treatment than other boys with SIBs. Moreover, the dynamics of SIBs by past victims should raise more concern for older than for younger children.     

Assessment for Effective Intervention: Enrichment Science Academic Program

Israel suffers from a growing problem of socio-economic gaps between those who live in the center of the country and residents of outlying areas. As a result, there is a low level of accessibility to higher education among the peripheral population. The goal of the Sidney Warren Science Education Center for Youth at Tel-Hai College is to strengthen the potential of middle and high school students and encourage them to pursue higher education, with an emphasis on majoring in science and technology. This study investigated the implementation and evaluation of the enrichment science academic program, as an example of informal learning environment, with an emphasis on physics studies. About 500 students conducted feedback survey after participating in science activities in four domains: biology, chemistry, physics, and computer science. Results indicated high level of satisfaction among the students. No differences were found with respect to gender excluding in physics with a positive attitudes advantage among boys. In order to get a deeper understanding of this finding, about 70 additional students conducted special questionnaires, both 1 week before the physics enrichment day and at the end of that day. Questionnaires were intended to assess both their attitudes toward physics and their knowledge and conceptions of the physical concept “pressure.” We found that the activity moderately improved boys’ attitudes toward physics, but that girls displayed decreased interest in and lower self-efficacy toward physics. Research results were used to the improvement of the instructional design of the physics activity demonstrating internal evaluation process for effective intervention.     

The philosophies,contents and pedagogies of environmental education programs in 10 Israeli elementary schools

In this study, our aim was to understand how environmental education has been implemented in Israeli elementary schools. We selected ten schools that had implemented Education for Sustainability programs and analyzed their mission statements and curriculum documents. We observed each school’s activities and interviewed teachers. Our analysis shows ambiguity with respect to the rationales and the theoretical foundations of the programs. It also shows much didactic teaching of content, a strong focus on behavioral outcomes, especially with respect to reducing resource consumption and to increasing the levels of recycling, as well as some degree of working with the community. The unclear status of environmental education in Israel, in terms of its structure within the education system, prevents it from having sufficient resources for teacher education and curriculum development. It is suggested that this lack of clarity is the main cause of the ambiguity and for the use of the traditional pedagogies we found in our analysis.     

An Examination of an Intervention Program Designed to Enhance Reading and Spelling Through the Training of Morphological Decomposition in Word Recognition

Morphological analysis of words has been shown to characterize skilled reading. A manipulation on the presentation of words, designed to encourage this process, was examined in dyslexic readers. Fifty-eight Hebrew-speaking university students with dyslexia were divided into three groups. One underwent a very short-term morpheme-based training, consisting of a time-restricted exposure to the root morphemes of words presented in a lexical decision task. The rest of the words’ letters remained on screen until a response. Another group received a control training consisting of the same procedure, except that the presentation of a nonmorphological orthographic unit was manipulated. Two untrained control groups, of dyslexic readers and of typical readers (n = 20), received pre- and posttest measures without training. The results suggest modest but positive effects on reading and spelling following the morpheme-based training, thereby suggesting that the morphological manipulation examined should be integrated in more intensive trainings.     

Project Comptown: educational intervention and action research

The introduction of computers into education raises questions such as: are computers in education effective? If they are, in what sense? What are the most effective strategies for using computers in education? How should teachers be encouraged to use them?
To answer these questions a large-scale experiment (Project Comptown) was carried out in Israel, to test ways and means under real rather than laboratory conditions. This project is a research-oriented educational intervention, applying massive computerisation of schools and their 'close environment' to two localities in Israel (Arad and Ashkelon). Our starting point was the premise that computerisation of education is an inevitable process. Consequently, turning the computer into a 'cultural tool' in schools becomes a major challenge, aiming to narrow the gap between 'school culture' and 'real-world culture'. The main objectives for Project Comptown are: [1] To create a computer culture in schools; [2] To use the computer's potential for innovative teaching and learning, both inside and outside schools. To achieve these, we identified a number of principles which we considered pre-conditions for an 'appropriate' computer strategy in schools.     

Technological,pedagogical and content knowledge in one-to-one classroom: teachers developing “digital wisdom”

One-to-one (1X1) laptop initiatives become prevalent in schools aiming to enhance active learning and assist students in developing twenty-first-century skills. This paper reports a qualitative investigation of all 7th graders and their 15 teachers in a junior high-school in Northern Israel gradually implementing 1X1 model. The research was conducted during a second year of 1X1 implementation at the school level, which was a first year of teaching and learning with laptops for all study participants. The study triangulates non-participant lessons’ observations and semi-structured interviews with 15 teachers. The data were collected twice: at the beginning and toward the end of the 2011–2012 academic year – in total, 30 observations and 30 interviews were conducted. The results were examined through phenomenological research techniques and discussed in terms of the technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) and “digital wisdom” approaches. The teachers showed significant increase of technological knowledge. However, only moderate connections between technology and pedagogy as well as between technology and content were found. Some of the teachers functioned as moderators, scaffolding students and supporting their individual or collaborative learning. However, many teachers struggled with effective management of 1X1 classroom. Neither conjunction of teacher TPACK nor facilitation of student digital skills was observed. The paper suggests an overlap of the TPACK framework and the digital wisdom approach and provides implications for curriculum developers and educational policy-makers.     

Crosschecking teachers’ perspectives on learning in a one-to-one environment with their actual classroom behavior – a longitudinal study

Education and Information Technologies - One-to-one laptop initiatives have become prevalent in schools aiming to enhance active learning and assist students in developing twenty-first-century...     

What are the underlying skills of silent reading acquisition? A developmental study from kindergarten to the 2nd grade

Research on reading acquisition and on the processes underlying it usually examined reading orally, while silent reading, which is the more common mode of reading, has been rather neglected. As accumulated data suggests that these two modes of reading only partially overlap, our understanding of the natural mode of reading may still be limited. The present study was set out to explore the underlying skills of reading acquisition examined using silent measures of reading. To this end, children acquiring reading of the phonologically transparent vowelized Hebrew orthography were followed from kindergarten to the 2nd grade. The relations between a range of verbal and visual-spatial skills with measures of silent reading were tested. Phonological awareness, RAN and vocabulary explained a significant amount of variance in fluency in word recognition and in fluency in decoding of pseudo-homophones, while visual speed of processing of numeric symbols explained a notable amount of variance in fluency in word recognition only. Phonological awareness, morphological awareness and phonological working memory were the main skills explaining the variance in reading comprehension. The relations of these skills with the quality of oral reading have been widely established in the reading literature. Furthermore, a similar developmental picture was obtained in the relations between some of these skills and silent reading, as was found with oral reading. Therefore the role of these skills in reading may not be restricted to a certain mode of reading. Also consistent with findings on oral reading, the role of the visual non-orthographic skills in the measures of silent reading was insignificant to very small. Together these results imply that the processes underlying measures of silent reading are not substantially different from the ones underlying measures of oral reading, at least not at the early stages of reading acquisition of a transparent orthography.