Development and testing of a prenatal breastfeeding education intervention for Hispanic women

Many immigrant Hispanic women in the United States choose to bottle-feed rather than breastfeed. This article describes an intervention that was developed and tested in a two-step process. Two studies were undertaken. First, a qualitative inquiry explored the breastfeeding beliefs, attitudes, meanings, and practices of Hispanic women. Results informed the design of a culturally appropriate prenatal breastfeeding education intervention. Secondly, the researchers undertook a quantitative study of the intervention's success in increasing breastfeeding duration among Hispanic women. Methodology and findings of this study have implications for future interventions that promote breastfeeding.     

The Effect of Instructional Modality and Prior Knowledge on Learning Point Group Symmetry

Many topics in chemistry are difficult for learners to understand, including symmetry. Reasons for this difficulty include its multi-level content, instructional methodologies utilized, and learner variables. This study examined the effect of initial instructional modality and prior knowledge on learning of point group symmetry. Forty-four students in a sophomore-level inorganic chemistry class at a small private university were divided by pre-selected lab groups into two groups, lecture and computer, for introductory information about point group symmetry. Both groups had low prior knowledge of symmetry elements although the lecture group had significantly higher knowledge than the computer group. After initial instruction, the lecture group scored significantly higher than the computer group on a point group assessment, even when prior knowledge was controlled. A second assessment, given after both groups had follow-up information from computer courseware, showed no significant difference between the groups. The computer group significantly improved between the two assessments, the lecture group did not. At the end-of-the semester post-test showed no significant difference between the two groups, although only 50% of the students in each group achieved mastery. Factors affecting the significant improvement of the low prior knowledge, computer group were examined and recommendations for future research provided.     

Teachers’ Perceptions of Factors Influencing the Curriculum

This paper describes a two‐part investigation into how teachers perceive the curriculum. In the primary stage, teachers were asked to assess how much freedom they felt they should have to determine the content of what they taught in their own classrooms, and how much freedom they fell they actually had, in this respect. A sample of 196 teachers, from varied schools and teaching backgrounds, took part. It was found that there was a very definite tendency to take a ‘middle way’ between total freedom and total constraint, in both cases. By and large, these teachers seemed to feel that they should have some freedom to determine what they taught in their own classrooms, but that there should be restraints as well. The general lack of discrepancy between what the teachers wanted, and what they felt they had, seemed to indicate that the great majority of the teachers were happy with the situation as they perceived it.

The same sample of 196 teachers was then asked to assess thirty varied potential influences, in terms of their power to shape the content of what they themselves taught in their own classroom. These potential influences included LEA advisers, parents, school governors, national educational associations etc. A factor analysis of the ratings made by the respondents showed that they regarded EXTERNAL‐PROFESSIONAL influences as the most important of all. This category included such influences as local colleges, and universities, national reports (such as the Warnock Report), professional journals and articles, local teachers’ centres, LEA advisory personnel, H.M. Inspectorate, etc. Four other types of influence were seen as important, but the EXTERNAL‐PROFESSIONAL category was seen as the most important by far. It was concluded that teachers’ perceptions of the influences which they felt shaped their curricula were positive and optimistic.     

Learning How to Make Inquiry into Electricity and Magnetism Discernible to Middle Level Teachers

As university professors we sought to disrupt the practice of giving our students the actions we felt they should imitate in their teaching practice. Instead, we sought to actively engage teachers in the creation of workable solutions to real-life problems. We accomplished this by conducting a participatory action research project. This paper illustrates our action research project focused on preparing middle level science teachers to foster inquiry-based learning in their classrooms. The findings of this study not only lead to a revised professional development opportunity for science teachers, but also provided an example of university faculty engaging in pragmatic research focused on addressing contemporary issues in K-12 science education. The work reported within was partially supported by a National Science Foundation Grant. The opinions, views and conclusions expressed in this paper may not reflect those of the funding agency.