An international collaborative investigation of beginning seventh grade students' understandings of scientific inquiry: Establishing a baseline

Although understandings of scientific inquiry (as opposed to conducting inquiry) are included in science education reform documents around the world, little is known about what students have learned about inquiry during their elementary school years. This is partially due to the lack of any assessment instrument to measure understandings about scientific inquiry. However, a valid and reliable assessment has recently been developed and published, Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI; Lederman et al. [2014], Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65–83). The purpose of this large-scale international project was to collect the first baseline data on what beginning middle school students have learned about scientific inquiry during their elementary school years. Eighteen countries/regions spanning six continents including 2,634 students participated in the study. The participating countries/regions were: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mainland China, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. In many countries, science is not formally taught until middle school, which is the rationale for choosing seventh grade students for this investigation. This baseline data will simultaneously provide information on what, if anything, students learn about inquiry in elementary school, as well as their beginning knowledge as they enter secondary school. It is important to note that collecting data from all of the approximately 200 countries globally was not humanly possible, and it was also not possible to collect data from every region of each country. The results overwhelmingly show that students around the world at the beginning of grade seven have very little understandings about scientific inquiry. Some countries do show reasonable understandings in certain aspects but the overall picture of understandings of scientific inquiry is not what is hoped for after completing 6 years of elementary education in any country.     

A multi-level analysis of the teacher education internship in terms of its collaborative dimension in Northern Cyprus

Partnership is a two-way enterprise which becomes meaningful when the partners at different levels are fully engaged in mutual cooperation, aiming at promoting both trainees’ and educators’ professional growth. This case study, qualitative in nature, was conducted with administrators, educators, and trainees to examine the collaboration dimension of the multi-layer processes of the EDUC420-Internship regarding its organizational and communication aspects. The data, analyzed through categorization of codes, revealed striking limitations inhibiting the collaboration dimension of the internship and suggested its reconceptualization around a formalized give-and-take mechanism to cultivate reciprocal communication among the ministry, the university and the schools.     

Tumor marker requests in a general teaching Turkish hospital

Serum tumor markers may be requested inappropriately by clinicians. In this retrospective study, we aimed to investigate the appropriateness of TM requests in our hospital. Patients in the study were identified from the TM requests for 3 months between June–August 2004, using the laboratory database. A total of 2249 patients (1351 men, 898 women) were included in the study and there were 6570 TM requests. The number of requests were 1050 (16%) for Carbohydrate Antigen 19-9, 993 (15.1%) for Cancer Antigen 125, 941 (14.3%) for Prostate Specific Antigen, 921 (14%) for free PSA, 925 (14.1%) for Cancer Antigen 15-3, 788 (12%) for Alphafetoprotein, 730 (11.1%) for Carcinoembryonic Antigen and 222 (3.4%) for AFP/Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin. Our findings support the idea that for the evidence-based use of TM requests the education of clinical staff is required. Clear clinical guidelines including recommendations about the appropriate use of TM can be useful for this education process. Careful audit studies are also useful to determine the impact of these guidelines on the practice of evidence-based laboratory medicine.     

Turkish grade 10 students' and science teachers' conceptions of nature of science: A national study

This study aimed to assess grade 10 Turkish students' and science teachers' conceptions of nature of science (NOS) and whether these conceptions were related to selected variables. These variables included participants' gender, geographical region, and the socioeconomic status (SES) of their city and region; teacher disciplinary background, years of teaching experience, graduate degree, and type of teacher training program; and student household SES and parents' educational level. A stratified sampling approach was used to generate a representative national sample comprising 2,087 students and 378 science teachers. After establishing their validity in the Turkish context, participants were administered a questionnaire comprising 14 modified “Views on Science‐Technology‐Society” (VOSTS) items to assess their views of certain aspects of NOS. A total of 2,020 students (97%) and 362 teachers (96%) completed the questionnaire. Participant responses were categorized as “naïve,” “have merit,” or “informed,” and the frequency distributions for these responses were compared for various groupings of participants. The majority of participants held naïve views of a majority of the target NOS aspects. Teacher views were mostly similar to those of their students. Teacher and student views of some NOS aspects were related to some of the target variables. These included teacher graduate degree and geographical region, and student household SES, parent education, and SES of their city and geographical region. The relationship between student NOS views and enhanced economic and educational capitals of their households, as well as the SES status of their cities and geographical regions point to significant cultural (specifically Western) and intellectual underpinnings of understandings about NOS. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 1083–1112, 2008     

Science Camps for Introducing Nature of Scientific Inquiry Through Student Inquiries in Nature: Two Applications with Retention Study

Research in Science Education - Scientific inquiry is widely accepted as a method of science teaching. Understanding its characteristics, called Nature of Scientific Inquiry (NOSI), is also...     

Respect in principal–teacher relations at primary schools in Turkey

Respect means consideration of actions and requests of others and confirmation of values of others. School is a social institution where students are equipped with knowledge and skills, as well as fundamental character attributes. Respect among students, teachers, administrators, parents, and other staff at schools is of importance. In this study, the focus group method, including 12 principals and 10 teachers at state primary schools, was employed to explore respect in principal–teacher relations. According to the findings, the participants generally developed professional respect understanding. The teachers presented different definitions of respect associated with hierarchical relations. The participants’ respect behaviors were commonly observed in positive communication and self-improvement. The principals displayed respect for teachers through some guarding behaviors, and the teachers displayed profession-related respect behaviors. The common respect expectations of the participants were as follows: self-improvement, establishment of positive social relations, and unbiased behavior. While the school principals expected obedience and complete fulfillment of assigned tasks from teachers, the teachers expected civility, justice, and guarding administration from principals. The participants regarded improper appearance, behaviors contradictory to rules of good manners and bad habits as disrespectfulness. The school principals regarded abuse of goodwill and false excuses by teachers as disrespectfulness; whereas the teachers regarded oral or behavioral insults by school principals and intervention in their private life as disrespectfulness.     

Social Justice and Resilience for African American Male Counselor Educators: A Phenomenological Study

In this phenomenological study, the authors interviewed 4 African American male counselor educators about their social justice efforts. Resulting themes were lifelong commitment to social justice, reaction to resistance, professional and personal support, and the meaning of social justice work. Findings suggest that social justice work can increase professional resilience for African American male counselor educators.     

Jersey sponsors in football/soccer: the industry classification of main jersey sponsors of 1147 football/soccer clubs in top leagues of 79 countries

The growing popularity and developments in football/soccer have affected the football/soccer industry dramatically. The popularity and developments have increased the interest of companies in the last two or three decades. Companies have started to invest and become a sponsor of football/soccer clubs. Jersey sponsorship has emerged as a result of the increasing interest and investments. Nowadays, the jersey sponsorship is popular and has become an important type of revenue source for football/soccer clubs. As a result of popularity of jersey sponsorship, jersey sponsors must be investigated and analysed. This paper deals with the industry classification of the main jersey sponsors which have names and logos on the front of the football/soccer clubs home jerseys. A total of 1147 football/soccer clubs in 79 countries top leagues, as of 31 December 2012, have been investigated. The Industry Classification Benchmark is used to classify the industries of the main jersey sponsors of football/soccer clubs.     

A modified Lyapunov functional with application to stability of neutral-type neural networks with time delays

This paper investigates the problem for stability of neutral-type dynamical neural networks involving delay parameters. Different form the previously reported results, the states of the neurons involve multiple delays and time derivative of states of neurons include discrete time delays. The stability of such neural systems has not been given much attention in the past literature due to the difficulty of finding Lyapunov functionals which are suitable for stability analysis of this type of neural networks. This paper constructs a generalized Lyapunov functional by introducing new terms into the well-known Lyapunov functional that enables us to conduct a theoretical investigation into stability analysis of delayed neutral-type neural systems. Based on this modified novel Lyapunov functional, sufficient criteria are derived, which guarantee the existence, uniqueness and global asymptotic stability of the equilibrium point of the neutral-type neural networks with multiple delays in the states and discrete delays in the time derivative of the states. The applicability of the proposed stability conditions rely on testing two basic matrix properties. The constraints impose on the system matrices are determined by using nonsingular M-matrix condition, and the constraints imposed on the coefficients of the time derivative of the delayed state variables are derived by exploiting the vector-matrix norms. We also note that the obtained stability conditions have no involvement with the delay parameters and expressed in terms of nonlinear Lipschitz activation functions. We present a constructive numerical example for this class of neural networks to give a systematic procedure for determining the imposed conditions on the whole system parameters of the delayed neutral-type neural systems.     

School Administrators’ Use of iPads: Impact of Training and Attitudes Toward School Use

As Apple iPads are increasingly being adopted in schools for educational purposes, school administrators are seen as the key facilitators in the implementation of this new technology. This survey-based quantitative study investigated the impact of receiving iPad training on school administrators’ attitudes towards iPad use in their professional lives and in the classroom by teachers. The participants consisted of 51 elementary and secondary school administrators in one of the largest public charter school systems in a southwestern state. School administrators reported that iPads were effective tools for administrative tasks and personal organization. Results also suggest that school administrators in this study had positive views regarding the potential of iPads’ current and future use in the classroom by teachers. Furthermore, the training process had a positive effect on the school administrators’ development of iPad skills and knowledge.