The Importance of Teaching and Learning Nature of Science in the Early Childhood Years

Though research has shown that students do not have adequate understandings of nature of science (NOS) by the time they exit high school, there is also evidence that they have not received NOS instruction that would enable them to develop such understandings. How early is “too early” to teach and learn NOS? Are students, particularly young students, not capable of learning NOS due to developmental unreadiness? Or would young children be capable of learning about NOS through appropriate instruction? Young children (Kindergarten through third grade) were interviewed and taught about NOS in a variety of contexts (informal, suburban, and urban) using similar teaching strategies that have been found effective at teaching about NOS with older students. These teaching strategies included explicit decontextualized and contextualized NOS instruction, through the use of children’s literature, debriefings of science lessons, embedded written NOS assessments, and guided inquiries. In each context the researchers interviewed students prior to and after instruction, videotaped science instruction and maintained researcher logs and field notes, collected lesson plans, and copies of student work. The researchers found that in each setting young children did improve their understandings of NOS. Across contexts there were similar understandings of NOS aspects prior to instruction, as well as after instruction. There were also several differences evident across contexts, and across grade levels. However, it is clear that students as young as kindergarten are developmentally capable of conceptualizing NOS when it is taught to them. The authors make recommendations for teaching NOS to young children, and for future studies that explore learning progressions of NOS aspects as students proceed through school.     

No Child Left Behind: Implications for college student learning

What does No Child Left Behind (NCLB) have to do with higher education? Turns out plenty, according to Teniell L. Trolian and Kristin S. Fouts. They argue that NCLB has signifcant consequences for college learners.     

Understanding student pathways in context-rich problems

This paper describes the ways that students’ problem-solving behaviors evolve when solving multi-faceted, context-rich problems within a web-based learning environment. During the semester, groups of two or three students worked on five physics problems that required drawing on more than one concept and, hence, could not be readily solved with simple “plug-and-chug” strategies. The problems were presented to students in a data-rich, online problem-based learning environment that tracked which information items were selected by students as they attempted to solve the problem. The students also completed a variety of tasks, like entering an initial qualitative analysis of the problem into an online form. Students were not constrained to complete these tasks in any specific order. As they gained more experience in solving context-rich physics problems, student groups showed some progression towards expert-like behavior as they completed qualitative analysis earlier and were more selective in their perusal of informational resources. However, there was room for more improvement as approximately half of the groups still completed the qualitative analysis task towards the end of the problem-solving process rather than at the beginning of the task when it would have been most useful to their work.     

Perceptions of the learning environment and associations with cognitive achievement among gifted biology students

This study assessed the perceptions of 146 gifted and 115 non-gifted high school biology students and investigated associations between student perceptions and cognitive achievement. The What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) was used to assess perceptions of actual and preferred learning environments. Data indicated that all students preferred a more favourable environment than the one that they were currently experiencing, but gifted students perceived their actual environment more positively than non-gifted students. Statistically significant associations between the actual learning environment and achievement on a standardised biology test were found for the majority of scales. Teacher Support, Investigation and Equity were all statistically significant independent predictors of student achievement, while Student Cohesiveness had a negative association with achievement. Interviews revealed that students interpreted some WIHIC items differently from how the developers had intended.     

Socioeconomic Status– and Gender‐Based Differences in Students’ Perceptions of E‐Learning Systems

Many universities are pursuing increases in on‐line course offerings as a means of offsetting the rising costs of providing high‐quality educational opportunities and of better serving their student populations. However, enrollments in online courses are not always sufficient to cover their costs. One possible way of improving enrollments is through marketing campaigns targeted to specific demographic groups. In this study, we take a first look into how students’ perceptions of e‐learning systems, prior to their enrollment in an online course, vary across socioeconomic status and gender. Findings suggest that prior to taking an online course, working‐class students perceive e‐learning systems more positively than their middle‐class peers but that little difference exists between genders. Armed with this knowledge, universities may improve online course enrollments by marketing online courses specifically to working‐class students or through campaigns aimed at improving middle‐class students’ perceptions of e‐learning systems.     

The Relationship Between Undergraduate Attendance and Performance Revisited: Alignment of Student and Instructor Goals

We revisit the relationship between attendance and performance in the undergraduate university setting and apply agency theory in the instructor–student context. Building on agency theory propositions in the educational setting advanced by Smith, Zsidisin, and Adams (2005) , we propose that the student and instructor must align goals to promote the student's achievement of performance learning outcomes, and attendance functions as a behavior‐based alignment mechanism to encourage the convergence of faculty and student interests. Further, we propose that attendance does not equally affect lower‐ and higher‐performing students and that absences are also negatively related to students' cumulative grade point average. We test these hypotheses with data from undergraduates enrolled in management courses at a state university in the southeast. Our results show that attendance is positively related to exam performance, there are more pronounced negative effects of an absence for lower‐performing students than for higher performers, and absences are negatively related to a student's cumulative grade point average. We discuss the implications of our findings for students, instructors, and universities as well as practice in teaching and learning.     

Child sexual abuse and bulimic symptomatology: relevance of specific abuse variables

OBJECTIVE: This study examined specific aspects of child sexual abuse in relation to symptom severity among hospitalized patients diagnosed with bulimia nervosa. METHOD: Participants were 45 hospitalized bulimic women who reported a history of child sexual abuse. Structured interviews were conducted in order to obtain detailed information regarding specific features of the abusive event(s). Participants also completed instruments that measured depression and eating pathology. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in severity of depression or eating disturbance among women reporting differing abusive experiences including intrafamilial versus extrafamilial abuse, abuse with or without the use of physical force, one versus multiple incidents, early abuse versus abuse occurring after age 14, contact versus noncontact abuse, disclosed versus undisclosed, and combined physical/sexual abuse versus sexual abuse alone. CONCLUSION: The specific characteristics of child sexual abuse are not related to the level of symptomatology for hospitalized bulimic patients. This study suggests that differences in the nature of the abuse may not be as important as the fact that the abuse occurred in the first place.     

Independence of neophobia and taste aversion learning

Animals were presented with (1) one solution which differed from that of the test solution, (2) a series of distinctly flavored solutions whose flavors differed from that of the test solution, or (3) with a flavored solution whose flavor was the same as that of the test solution. When animals received the solution whose flavor was the same as that of the test solution prior to a test for neophobia and prior to a conditioning trial, neophobia was reduced and aversions were weakened. However, when animals received a solution or a series of solutions whose flavors differed from that of the test solution, neophobia was reduced but conditioned aversions were unaffected. Presentations of solutions that differed from the test solution following aversion formation left the association between the taste of the test solution and the effects of the aversion-inducing treatment intact. In a final experiment it was discovered that neophobia was reduced as much when animals drank solutions whose flavors changed every third day as when they drank the same solution throughout testing.