Covid-19 pandemic and the prospects of education in South Africa

PROSPECTS - The Covid-19 pandemic has caused havoc in the world, radically changing our lives and raising new and old questions, both existential and educational. This pandemic has revealed the...     

Effective Antenatal Education: Strategies Recommended by Expectant and New Parents

Antenatal education is a crucial component of antenatal care, yet practice and research demonstrate that women and men now seek far more than the traditional approach of a birth and parenting program attended in the final weeks of pregnancy. Indeed, women and men participating in this study recommended a range of strategies to be provided during the childbearing year, comparable to a “menu in a restaurant.” Their strategies included three program types: “Hearing Detail and Asking Questions,” “Learning and Discussing,” and “Sharing and Supporting Each Other.” The characteristics of each type of program are identified in this article. The actual learning methods the study participants recommended to be incorporated into the programs were “Time to Catch Up and Focus,” “Seeing and Hearing the Real Experience,” “Practicing,” and “Discovering.”     

Scale dimensionality and population heterogeneity: Potential problems in the interpretation of attitude data

This paper examines problems in the interpretation of attitude data which may arise when the dimensionality of the instrument and sources of heterogeneity in the population are ignored. As a specific example, the paper describes the development and analysis of an instrument designed to measure primary school children's liking of science-related activities. Careful analysis of the patterns of response to the questionnaire created some disquiet about the conventional methods used to collapse data from attitude scales. The results demonstrate that conclusions drawn from attitude measurement can be misleading when proper attention is not given to the structure of the instrument nor to the structure of the population from which the measurements are made.     

Modeling Student Cognition in Digital and Nondigital Assessment Environments

Inferences about student knowledge, skills, and attributes based on digital activity still largely come from whether students ultimately get a correct result or not. However, the ability to collect activity stream data as individuals interact with digital environments provides information about students’ processes as they progress through learning activities. These data have the potential to yield information about student cognition if methods can be developed to identify and aggregate evidence from diverse data sources. This work demonstrates how data from multiple carefully designed activities aligned to a learning progression can be used to support inferences about students’ levels of understanding of the geometric measurement of area. The article demonstrates evidence identification and aggregation of activity stream data from two different digital activities, responses to traditional assessment items, and ratings based on observation of in-person non-digital activity aligned to a common learning progression using a Bayesian Network approach.     

Undergraduates’ perception and engagement in Facebook learning groups

This study presents and evaluates the educational potentials that Social Network Services (SNS) offer to students in the higher education context. The first aim of this study is to explore students’ perceptions of Facebook Learning Groups (ie, Facebook Groups that were created for learning purposes), and the learning and affective benefits that SNS offer to students. This study further explores the influence of four identified factors (ie, self-efficacy, privacy, trust and presence of teaching members) in moderating students’ perception and learning engagements on SNS. Findings from an online survey demonstrate the usefulness of these learning groups. Trust and presence of teaching members were also indicated to have significant influences in affecting students’ perception and engagement in Facebook Learning Groups.     

“We've Got to Keep Meeting Like This”: A Pilot Study Comparing Academic Performance in Shifting-Membership Cooperative Groups Versus Stable-Membership Cooperative Groups in an Introductory-Level Lab

This study examined possible ways to increase student engagement in small sections of a large, introductory-level, required university course. Research shows that cooperative group learning boosts achievement through fostering better interpersonal relationships between students. Cooperative group learning is an evidence-based instructional practice engaging students in active learning. The present study investigated whether cooperative groups with sustained-membership functioned more effectively for boosting performance than shifting-membership cooperative groups. Findings indicated that the amount of class time spent in groups influenced the impact of shifting or sustained-membership. A significant difference in performance was found for sustained-group students when group activities were used the majority of the time during recitation.     

深海中跃动的色彩

裸鳃海蛞蝓的一生都在缓缓地爬行.它们仿若新生婴儿般的肌肤光滑细腻,令看到的人惊讶不已.数百万年前,这些与蜗牛拥有共同祖先的裸鳃海蛞蝓摆脱了硬质的外壳,只保留了皮肤、肌肉以及能分泌粘液、推动它们滑动前行的足部,还有那长似珊瑚般的触角.