Analyzing prospective teachers’ images of scientists using positive,negative and stereotypical images of scientists

Background and purpose : This study details the use of a conceptual framework to analyze prospective teachers’ images of scientists to reveal their context-specific conceptions of scientists. The conceptual framework consists of context-specific conceptions related to positive, stereotypical and negative images of scientists as detailed in the literature on the images, role and work of scientists.

Sample, design and method : One hundred and ninety-six drawings of scientists, generated by prospective teachers, were analyzed using the Draw-A-Scientist-Test Checklist (DAST-C), a binary linear regression and the conceptual framework.

Results : The results of the binary linear regression analysis revealed a statistically significant difference for two DAST-C elements: ethnicity differences with regard to drawing a scientist who was Caucasian and gender differences for indications of danger. Analysis using the conceptual framework helped to categorize the same drawings into positive, stereotypical, negative and composite images of a scientist.

Conclusions : The conceptual framework revealed that drawings were focused on the physical appearance of the scientist, and to a lesser extent on the equipment, location and science-related practices that provided the context of a scientist’s role and work. Implications for teacher educators include the need to understand that there is a need to provide tools, like the conceptual framework used in this study, to help prospective teachers to confront and engage with their multidimensional perspectives of scientists in light of the current trends on perceiving and valuing scientists. In addition, teacher educators need to use the conceptual framework, which yields qualitative perspectives about drawings, together with the DAST-C, which yields quantitative measure for drawings, to help prospective teachers to gain a holistic outlook on their drawings of scientists.     

What Account of Science Shall We Give? A Case Study of Scientists Teaching First-year University Subjects

This article presents a case study of four academic scientists. These academics teach in the first year of a Bachelor of Science degree at a large research-focused Australian university that has demanded and supported a greater focus on undergraduate learning. Taken as a whole, the accounts of science that the first-year academics in this case study gave, and which they are presenting to their students, challenge the images of science and scientists typically presented in school science curricula. Using Roberts' heuristic of Vision 1 and Vision 2 for the broad purposes of learning science, we consider various accounts given of science by these academic scientists and consider how science might appear to a student who takes all four of their subjects.     

Bringing action research to the curriculum development process

As new communication technologies enter the classroom, teachers must attend to how digital platforms impact the interpersonal practices of teaching and learning. In this article, I study email exchanges with three of my students – Jorge, Adriana, and Jason – over the course of one year in an 11th-grade English class at River High School, a struggling American school subject to intervention for failing to meet the federal No Child Left Behind requirements. I ask several questions: what role does email play in my relationships with students; what does email reveal about the ideological content of my communication with students; and how could I use email transformatively? When I studied these email exchanges, I found that while email has the potential to transform literacy instruction, it can also perpetuate a poor student/teacher relationship and reproduce neoliberal narratives that narrowly imagine students as test-takers, workers, and consumers.     

A Prose Learning Strategy Training Program Based on Network and Depth-of-Processing Models

Relatively simple changes in cognitive activities during prose learning can have a substantial effect on how much and what kind of information is acquired, yet many students use relatively ineffective learning strategies. This paper describes a learning strategy training program which is based on network models of long-term memory structure and depth-of-processing theory. Evidence is presented which supports the effectiveness of the learning strategy training program in enhancing prose learning among college students.     

An analysis of prospective teachers’ knowledge for constructing concept maps

Background: Literature contends that a teacher’s knowledge of concept map-based tasks influence how their students perceive the task and execute the creation of acceptable concept maps. Teachers who are skilled concept mappers are able to (1) understand and apply the operational terms to construct a hierarchical/non-hierarchical concept map; (2) identify the legitimacy of the constructed concept map by verifying its graphical structure and its educational utility; and (3) determine the inherent ‘good’ and ‘poor’ qualities of the resulting graphical structure to reiterate the ‘good’ qualities and to coach and provide feedback to alleviate ‘poor’ qualities.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of prospective teachers’ knowledge underpinning the technique used to construct concept maps and thus, explicate their facility to construct concept maps.

Sample, Design and Methods: Data consisted of 200 concept maps constructed by prospective teachers in an elementary science methods course.

Results: Analysis revealed that the prospective teachers had predominantly constructed either hierarchical and/or non-hierarchical concept maps. It is likely that their maps reflect the teaching that they themselves would have experienced in their science classrooms during their own education. Additionally, most of these concepts maps only contained the root concept and subordinate concepts and lacked directional linking lines, linking phrases, labelled lines and propositions.

Conclusions: We argue that teacher educators need to assess their prospective teachers’ understanding of concept mapping in relation to the legitimacy (the nature and quality) of the end-products (graphical structures) of such practices. Prospective teachers also need to understand the educational utility of concept mapping in terms of how these end-products impact and/or effectuate learning.     

Ministry of Labour female training programmes between the wars: 1919-39

British Somaliland, a protectorate from which Christian missionaries were excluded, opened its first government‐run school in 1938. The intention of the new director of education, Randall Ellison, was to use written Somali in preference to Arabic. This drew intense criticism from local religious leaders, and had to be abandoned. Accused of being a missionary in disguise, Ellison’s work led to a riot in the town of Burao in 1939 in which three people were killed. Although the school at Berbera functioned for just two terms, the opposition it aroused forms a link in an anti‐Western chain of events that stretches from the 1899–1920 revolt of Sayyid Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan up to the Al‐Qaeda‐linked killing of two British teachers in 2003. This paper is based on Ellison’s letters to his family and on official and other sources.     

Response to Fry and Kraemer

In general, women are well represented among sport participants and sport audiences but not in the media. Data show that women's sport is greatly underreported and trivialized in newspapers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to measure press coverage during the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in the largest circulating Belgian, Danish, French, and Italian daily newspapers by: (a) number of articles, (b) size, (c) page placement, (d) accompanying photographs, and (e) photograph size. For each sport covered, the athletes' nationality and the gender were recorded. Compared to the 1996 Atlanta Games, there was an increase of 326 female athletes (+4%), and women competed in 25 sports and 132 events (44%) of the total 300 events. Although only 29.3% of the articles and 38% of photos were on women's sports, the newspaper coverage was similar to the distribution of participating athletes and events. No significant gender differences were found with respect to article size, page placement, accompanying photographs, or photograph size. The most covered sport was track and field, independent of national achievement. Other sports received different coverage in relation to national expectations, achievement, and participation. In conclusion, there was a trend to overcome gender inequities in media coverage during the Olympic Games, which may be due to the International Olympic Committee's actions to promote increased participation of women in sport activities and to publicize their achievements. Moreover, during the Olympic Games, a nationalistic fervor might affect the equality of gender coverage.     

Evaluation of Low-Cost,Objective Instruments for Assessing Physical Activity in 10–11-Year-Old Children

This study compared step counts detected by four, low-cost, objective, physical-activity-assessment instruments and evaluated their ability to detect moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) compared to the ActiGraph accelerometer (AG). Thirty-six 10–11-year-old children wore the NL-1000, Yamax Digiwalker SW 200, Omron HJ-151, and Walk4Life MVP concurrently with the AG during school hours on a single day. AG MVPA was derived from activity count data using previously validated cut points. Two of the evaluated instruments provided similar group mean MVPA and step counts compared to AG (dependent on cut point). Low-cost instruments may be useful for measurement of both MVPA and steps in children's physical activity interventions and program evaluation.     

Analyzing the impact of sport infrastructure on sport participation using geo-coded data: Evidence from multi-level models

Sport policies aiming at increasing mass participation and club participation have stressed the importance of sport infrastructure. Previous research has mainly analyzed the influence of individual factors (age, income, etc.) on sport participation. Although a few studies have dealt with the impact of sport facilities on sport participation, some methodological shortcomings can be observed regarding the integration of sport infrastructure into the research design. Oftentimes, subjective measures of infrastructure are employed, leading to biased results, for example inactive people have a worse perception of the actual supply of facilities. In fact it is important to measure the available sport infrastructure objectively using a quantitative approach and integrate it into statistical models. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of individual and infrastructure variables on sport participation in general and in sport clubs using geo-coded data following a multi-level design. For this purpose, both primary data (individual level) and secondary data (infrastructure level) were collected in the city of Munich, Germany. A telephone survey of the resident population was carried out (n = 11,175) and secondary data on the available sport infrastructure in Munich were collected. Both datasets were geo-coded using Gauss–Krueger coordinates and integrated into multi-level analyses. The multi-level models show that swimming pools are of particular importance for sport participation in general and sport fields for participation in sport clubs. Challenges and implications for a more holistic modeling of sport participation including infrastructure variables are discussed.