Identifying patterns and relationships among the responses of seventh-grade students to the science process skill of designing experiments

The development of reasoning skills, higher-level thinking skills, and science process skills are some of the benefits students can realize by participating in inquiry in the science laboratory. We used student responses to the Alternative Assessment of Science Process Skills (AASPS) developed by the Missouri Department of Education and the Department of Educational Assessment to develop the Science Process Skills Inventory (SPSI). The SPSI was then used to analyze student efforts at writing experimental designs. Our goal was to gain insight into factors that may be related to students successfully designing experiments. The instrument guides teachers and researchers in assessing seven main components of experimental designs. Each component consists of elements unique to the specific laboratory exercise. Subsequent to its development, the instrument was used to score 364 student responses to the “design an experiment” portion of an alternative assessment instrument for science process skills. Results indicate that explicit, incremental development of the science process skills of formulating hypotheses and identifying variables, together with model examples, may be a means to facilitate student success in designing science experiments. Implications for the classroom and for research are discussed. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Rise and Fall of the Science Advisor to the President of the United States

The president’s science advisor was formerly established in the days following the Soviet launch of Sputnik at the height of the Cold War, creating an impression of scientists at the center of presidential power. However, since that time the role of the science advisor has been far more prosaic, with a role that might be more aptly described as a coordinator of budgets and programs, and thus more closely related to the functions of the Office of Management and Budget than the development of presidential policy. This role dramatically enhances the position of the scientific community to argue for its share of federal expenditures. At the same time, scientific and technological expertise permeates every function of government policy and politics, and the science advisor is only rarely involved in wider White House decision making. The actual role of the science advisor as compared to its heady initial days, in the context of an overall rise of governmental expertise, provides ample reason to reconsider the role of the presidential science advisor, and to set our expectations for that role accordingly.

Are we safe? NLM's household products database

This column features an overview of the Division of Specialized Information Services, National Library of Medicine Household Products Database. Basic searching techniques are presented, as well as a brief overview of the data contained in this file. The Household Products Database contains information on chemical ingredients in various products used in U.S. homes.     

Specific Learning Difficulties and Peer Support

This article describes a project aimed at supporting secondary-school pupils with specific learning difficulties, using a peer support approach. Feedback obtained from the school's special educational needs co-ordinator and from the pupils themselves indicated some degree of success for the project in terms of developments in the pupils' response to learning and in their self-perceptions. The involvement of older pupils as contributors to the group is identified as one factor in the success of the project. The project format and the content of the group sessions are described in sufficient detail to enable colleagues to run similar groups should they wish.     

Effects of Introducing Classroom Peflormance Assessments on Student Learning

How can performance assessments be used as part of regular instruction? Will this raise student performance on external achievement measures? What aspects of examinee performance improve on the assessment exercises?     

Quelques Erreurs Pouvant être Liées à Une Difficulté à Concevoir un Ensemble Comme un Objet Distinct De Ses éléments Chez Des étudiants Et Des étudiantes Universitaires

As a first step of a project on learning difficulties in elementary set theory, we carried out a study aimed at identifying some of the difficulties encountered by a group of 21 mathematics majors taking a course on logic and set theory. In this paper, we shall discuss one of the difficulties that we observed, namely a difficulty in conceiving a set as an object distinct from its elements, i.e. failing to fully grant sets the status of objects. This difficulty may be related to the following three types of errors that we observed in the students' first assignment: (1) confusing belonging and inclusion, (2) confusing the union of sets A, B, C, ... with the set whose elements are A, B, C, … and (3) adding or deleting curly brackets. We shall present excerpts from the students' work illustrating these three types of errors and explain how they may be related to a difficulty in conceiving a set as an object distinct from its elements.     

Stability and change of moral disengagement and its impact on aggression and violence in late adolescence

Stability and change of moral disengagement were examined in a sample of 366 adolescents from ages 14 to 20 years. Four developmental trajectories were identified: (a) nondisengaged group that started with initially low levels followed by an important decline, (b) normative group that started with initially moderate levels followed by a decline, (c) later desister group that started with initially high-medium levels followed by an increase from 14 to 16 years and an even steeper decline from 16 to 20 years, and (d) chronic group that started with and maintained medium-high levels. The results attest that adolescents who maintained higher levels of moral disengagement were more likely to show frequent aggressive and violent acts in late adolescence.     

HazLit: a unique resource for natural hazards information

The "Online Updates" column generally focuses on bibliographic databases that may be licensed from commercial vendors or are available free of charge from a federal government agency. HazLit is featured because it is a unique and comprehensive resource of the literature of natural disasters. This column provides background information on HazLit and offers some searching basics, as well as highlights special information found at the Web site that hosts the database.