Effects of staff and student tutors on student achievement

In the problem-based curriculum of the faculty of Law, students of the first year are guided by staff tutors or undergraduate student tutors in small tutorial groups. In this study, academic achievement of staff tutor-guided groups are compared with student tutor-guided groups. After an eight-week course students' level of academic achievement was tested by essay questions. Two methods of assessing students' performance are used: expert judgements and propositional analysis. Results of both methods used indicate that no differences in academic achievement occur. Students guided by student tutors perform as well as students guided by staff tutors. Several explanations are proposed to account for these results.     

The Conceptions of In-service and Prospective Primary School Teachers About the Teaching and Learning of Science

A study was performed to describe and analyze the conceptions about teaching and learning science held by different samples of teachers in Spain. The responses of 265 teachers (107 prospective teachers and 158 active teachers) to items from the Inventory of Scientific and Pedagogical Beliefs (Porlán, 1989) were subjected to multifactorial analysis. The results showed various tendencies in how the teaching/learning process is viewed, ranging from a predominant view based on the transmission-reception of knowledge to a minority constructivist view. There was a greater diversity of viewpoints among the in-service teachers than among the prospective teachers. In both samples, the most representative tendency was learning as appropriation of meanings, followed by a technical view of teaching among the prospective teachers and a more traditional view among the in-service teachers. Finally, some implications for teacher education are discussed.     

Self Organising Wayfinding Support for Lifelong Learners

Lifelong learning puts learner self-direction centre-stage. However, increased responsibility should not come at the price of over-burdening or abandonment of learners as they progress along their learning journey. This paper introduces an approach to wayfinding support for lifelong learners based on self-organisation theory. It describes an architecture which supports the recording, processing and presentation of collective learner behaviour designed to create a feedback loop informing learners of successful paths towards the attainment of learning goals. The approach is presented as an alternative to methods of achieving adaptation in hypermedia-based learning environments which involve learner modelling. The article concludes with a discussion of the questions being addressed in our ongoing research.     

Learning Gene Expression Through Modelling and Argumentation

There is emerging interest on the interactions between modelling and argumentation in specific contexts, such as genetics learning. It has been suggested that modelling might help students understand and argue on genetics. We propose modelling gene expression as a way to learn molecular genetics and diseases with a genetic component. The study is framed in Tiberghien’s (2000) two worlds of knowledge, the world of “theories & models” and the world of “objects & events”, adding a third component, the world of representations. We seek to examine how modelling and argumentation interact and connect the three worlds of knowledge while modelling gene expression. It is a case study of 10th graders learning about diseases with a genetic component. The research questions are as follows: (1) What argumentative and modelling operations do students enact in the process of modelling gene expression? Specifically, which operations allow connecting the three worlds of knowledge? (2) What are the interactions between modelling and argumentation in modelling gene expression? To what extent do these interactions help students connect the three worlds of knowledge and modelling gene expression? The argumentative operation of using evidence helps students to relate the three worlds of knowledge, enacted in all the connections. It seems to be a relationship among the number of interactions between modelling and argumentation, the connections between world of knowledge and students’ capacity to develop a more sophisticated representation. Despite this is a case study, this approach of analysis reveals potentialities for a deeper understanding of learning genetics though scientific practices.     

Materialism and Deconstructivism: education and the epistemology of identity

Identity is one of the defining terms of the 1990s in England. Currently, academic, political and popular discourses highlight the pervasiveness of the term. However, what is missing from these accounts is an awareness of its philosophical roots. Consequently, most of these accounts are theoretically under‐developed, marked by conceptual confusion and conflation. This paper is concerned with the formation of identities within the context of educational arenas. More specifically, we focus upon the philosophical positions of materialism and deconstructivism, highlighting the particular dynamics of their epistemologies of identity. We suggest that at a time of political retreat and and intellectual self‐doubt among educationists, critical social scientists are making available productive conceptual frameworks within which to explore identity formations in educational sites. Recent theoretical developments in sociology and cultural studies provide an opportunity for philosophy of education to play a vital role here, in engaging with new ways of thinking about old philosophical problems. Within the context of an increasing reductionist policy focus on managerialist solutions, philosophy helps us to challenge the ideological conversion of moral and political questions into technicist ‘problems’.     

Type and degree of co-occurrence of the educational communication in a community of inquiry*

The study analyzes the type and quantity of co-occurrence of social, cognitive, and teaching presence in a Community of Inquiry (CoI). Content analysis of the virtual educational communication shows units of analysis that must be assigned to more than one category. By crossing the categories of the CoI model, we observe that Social Presence is involved in all of the crossings and that graphic, linguistic, and paralinguistic elements change the meaning of the communication in the social, cognitive, and teaching interaction. We demonstrate the communicative richness of the educational encounters in which Social Presence interacts with the other elements and draw conclusions about the importance of support for communication in virtual communication. We stress the need to analyze co-occurrences to achieve a full analysis of computer-mediated communication.     

Understanding the Idea of Chemical Elements and Their Periodic Classification in Spanish Students Aged 16–18 Years

The work reported here involved a comparative study regarding the understanding that high school students (16–18 years) have of the concept of chemical elements and their periodic classification. More specifically, the level of knowledge on this topic was compared before and after the completion of baccalaureate studies in a sample of Spanish students. In order to achieve this goal, a questionnaire was developed that included 14 items in an open format, through which various aspects of the students’ understanding of the idea of chemical element and their periodic classification were assessed. In addition, the application of this knowledge to interpret and predict the behaviour and properties of elements and to carry out calculations on the atomic composition of the elements was evaluated. Aspects concerning the acquisition of scientific knowledge, the application of knowledge to different contexts and situations, and the use of scientific evidence to draw conclusions and knowledge about the nature and history of science were evaluated. The questionnaire was previously validated with a large group of students. The results of this study show that improvements occur primarily in addressing higher level cognitive questions (analysis, synthesis and evaluation) in comparison to the lower level tasks (capacity for retention, understanding or direct application of learning). In addition, students who start high school have a very limited understanding of the ideas behind the Periodic Table of the chemical elements and that their lack of understanding, to a large extent, remains upon completion of the baccalaureate. These results suggest that there are real difficulties in understanding this topic and show the limited influence of the studies completed in high school.