Articulation of Conceptual Knowledge and Argumentation Practices by High School Students in Evolution Problems

The oral arguments of 12th grade students while solving tasks related to evolution are examined. Two groups (N = 45), taught by the same teacher, were studied during a complete teaching sequence. The paper focuses on data from the last sessions, devoted to solving problems in small groups, problems related to different dimensions of the evolutionary model. Data include video recordings, the students’ written productions and the researcher (first author) field notes. The objective is to examine the process of articulation of students’ argumentation practices with their use of evolutionary models. The results show that participants were able to apply notions such as common ancestors, radiation, or gradualism to different contexts. The arguments required the articulation of evolution notions with argumentative practices as coordinating evidence with claims at different epistemic levels. The influence of the teacher’s strategies in the students’ role is discussed.     

Disclosure to Parents About Everyday Activities Among American Adolescents From Mexican, Chinese, and European Backgrounds

Disclosure to parents and reasons for not disclosing different activities were examined in 489 Chinese, Mexican, and European American adolescents ( M  =   16.37 years, SD  =   0.77). With generational status controlled, Chinese American adolescents disclosed less to mothers about personal and multifaceted activities than European Americans and less about personal feelings than other youth, primarily because these acts were considered personal, not harmful, or because parents would not listen or understand. Disclosure regarding prudential behavior was lower among Mexican American than among European American adolescents, primarily due to concerns with parental disapproval. Multigroup path analyses indicated that greater closeness to parents is associated with more disclosure for all youth and activities; associations between family obligation and disclosure varied by domain and ethnicity.     

A systematic analysis of performance measures for classification tasks

This paper presents a systematic analysis of twenty four performance measures used in the complete spectrum of Machine Learning classification tasks, i.e., binary, multi-class, multi-labelled, and hierarchical. For each classification task, the study relates a set of changes in a confusion matrix to specific characteristics of data. Then the analysis concentrates on the type of changes to a confusion matrix that do not change a measure, therefore, preserve a classifier’s evaluation (measure invariance). The result is the measure invariance taxonomy with respect to all relevant label distribution changes in a classification problem. This formal analysis is supported by examples of applications where invariance properties of measures lead to a more reliable evaluation of classifiers. Text classification supplements the discussion with several case studies.     

Teaching Partnerships: Early Childhood and Engineering Students Teaching Math and Science Through Robotics

This paper presents an innovative approach to introducing pre-service early childhood teachers to math, science and technology education. The approach involves the creation of partnerships between pre-service early childhood and engineering students to conceive, develop, implement and evaluate curriculum in the area of math, science and technology by using robotics and the engineering design process. In this paper we first present the theoretical framework for the creation of these partnerships. We then introduce an experience done at Tufts University in which three different forms of partnership models evolved: the collaborators model, the external consultants model and the developers model. We also present different case studies from this experience and finally we conclude with some remarks and observations for making this work scalable and sustainable in other settings and universities.     

Identification of visual dimensions in photographs using multidimensional scaling techniques

An examination of underlying visual dimensions commonly perceived in photographs was conducted using multidimensional scaling techniques. Fifteen male and female university graduate students individually examined 34 photographs chosen to represent a broad range of visual topics. Similarity judgments between photographs were used for multidimensional scaling, while subject interview data were used to describe meaningful visual concepts. Results indicate that pictures were grouped in clusters along three observable dimensions. Life, nature, and culture emerged as the dimensions of primary importance to viewers. This suggests the existence of universal meaning systems in visuals for communicating denotative and connotative meaning and presents experimental variables for future hypothesis testing. We gratefully acknowledge David Lancy’s inspiration and Ed Greenberg’s significant contribution to this work.     

Dialectical dividends: fostering hybridity of new pedagogical practices and partnerships in science education and outreach

Science literacy has become socially and economically very important. European countries stress that science graduates are fundamental for economic growth. Nevertheless, there is a declining student participation in science. In response, there has been a call to change the way science is taught in schools, which focuses on inquiry methods rooted in constructivism. Universities and other organisations have responded by developing outreach programmes to improve student engagement in science. Given this context, there is a necessity for research to ascertain if this new relationship between outreach and education is worthwhile. This study examines and compares primary teachers and outreach practitioners understanding and perceptions of constructivist science pedagogy, in an effort to understand the potential of a teacher-outreach partnership. For this, qualitative and quantitative methods were employed, taking a dialectic pragmatic stance. Contradicting the recurrent view, teachers and outreach providers revealed favourable views in relation to constructivism, despite recognising barriers to its implementation. These results support a partnership between teachers and outreach practitioners and the realisation of the hybrid role of each participant. The results also reveal an important dynamic in outreach access to schools. Specifically, the outreach connected teachers acted as gatekeepers by negotiating access into their colleagues classrooms.     

The Relationship Between “Teen Mom” Reality Programming and Teenagers' Beliefs About Teen Parenthood

A survey was conducted with U.S. high school students (M = 16.57 years of age) from the Midwest to examine whether exposure to “teen mom” reality programming (e.g., 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom) was related to teens' perceptions of teen parenthood. Contrary to our hypotheses, analyses revealed that exposure to teen mom reality programming was related to an increased tendency to believe that teen mothers have an enviable quality of life, a high income, and involved fathers. Teens who perceived reality television as realistic were most likely to hold these perceptions. The findings are discussed in terms of cultivation theory.