Understanding conceptual change: connecting and questioning

We engage in a metalogue based on eight papers in this issue of Cultural Studies of Science Education that review the state of conceptual change research and its possible affect on the teaching and learning of science. Our discussion addresses three aspects of conceptual change research: theoretical, methodological, and practical, as we discuss conceptual change research in light of our experiences as science educators. Finally, we examine the implications of conceptual change research for the teachers and students with whom we work.

Evaluation of Sweat Production by Pilocarpine Iontophoresis: A Noninvasive Screening Tool for Hypohidrosis in Ectodermal Dysplasia

Ectodermal dysplasia (ED) is a genetic disorder affecting the skin, hair, nails, teeth and sweat glands. The clinical presentation is heterogenous; however, hypohidrotic (reduced sweat) ectodermal dysplasia (HED) being the commonest. Also known as anhidrotic ED, sweat glands are sparse or rudimentary, leading to dysregulation of body temperature and episodes of uncontrolled hyperthermia due to reduced sweating. Of the many aids to document hypohidrosis in HED, we present here the technique of pilocarpine iontophoresis to induce, collect and measure sweat. Evaluation of sweat generated (against normally obtained values) is a non-invasive alternative to establish hypohidrosis in disorders such as HED. This augments clinical decision levels to plan skin biopsy for confirmation of diagnosis and facilitates patient management and early discharge. We present two cases of HED that were primarily diagnosed with sweat gland dysplasia using pilocarpine iontophoresis, and later confirmed with skin biopsy findings.     

C2STEM: a System for Synergistic Learning of Physics and Computational Thinking

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Synergistic learning combining computational thinking (CT) and STEM has proven to be an effective method for advancing learning and understanding in a...     

Circadian Time Structure of Circulating Plasma Lipid Components in Healthy Indians of Different Age Groups

The circadian rhythm of human circulating lipid components was studied under nearnormal tropical conditions in 162 healthy volunteers (103 males and 59 females; 7 to 75 years of age). They followed a diurnal activity from about 06:00 to about 22:00 and nocturnal rest. These volunteers were divided into four groups: Group A (7–20 years), Group B (21–40 years), Group C (41–60 years) and Group D (61–75 years), comprising 42, 60, 35 and 25 participants, respectively. A marked circadian rhythm was demonstrated for each studied variable in each group by population-mean cosinor analysis (almost invariably p < 0.001). Furthermore, circadian rhythm characteristics were compared among the 4 groups by parameter tests and regressed as a function of age, separately for males and females. A second-order polynomial characterized the MESOR of HDL cholesterol, phospholipids and total lipids, as well as the 24-h amplitude of total cholesterol and phospholipids. The 24-h amplitude of total lipids decreased linearly with age. The 24-h acrophase of the oldest age group (Group D) was advanced in the case of total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and total lipids, whereas that of phospholipids was delayed. Mapping the circadian rhythm (an important component of the broader time structure or chronome, which includes a. o., trends with age and extra-circadian components) of lipid components is needed to explore their role in the aging process in health.     

Effectiveness of a Conflict Resolution Training Program in Changing Graduate Students Style of Managing Conflict with their Faculty Advisors

We investigated the conflict management preferences of graduate students with their faculty advisors and assessed the effects of participating in a conflict resolution workshop on those preferences. One hundred and twenty-one graduate students completed the pre-workshop surveys, and 69 participants completed the post-workshop surveys after seven workshops conducted over a 3 year period. Nineteen subjects participated in three post-workshop focus groups. The quantitative pre-workshop data showed that avoidance and accommodation styles for managing conflict were preferred among participants. Participants showed a trend towards a statistically significant increase in the collaborating score post-workshop relative to pre-workshop levels. The qualitative data indicated that students applied skills taught during the workshop, including interest-based principles, when interacting with faculty.     

Circadian Periodicity of Circulating Plasma Lipid Peroxides,Uric Acid and Ascorbic Acid in Renal Stone Formers

Circadian periodicity of plasma lipid peroxides and serum ascorbic acid and uric acid levels were studied in one hundred renal stone formers (55 women and 45 men; age 20–60 years) and 50 clinically healthy volunteers (21 women and 29 men; age 21–45 years) with diurnal activity from 06:00 to 22:00 and nocturnal rest. A marked circadian variation was demonstrated by population-mean-cosinor for all studied variables in stone formers and healthy subjects. By comparison to the healthy controls, parameter tests indicate that the stone formers had a higher MESOR (±SE) of MDA (2.90 ± 0.03 vs. 2.28 ± 0.06; F = 94.929, p < 0.001), a lower MESOR of serum ascorbic acid (0.722 ± 0.010 vs. 0.839 ± 0.10; F = 32.083, p < 0.001), and a similar MESOR of serum uric acid. Furthermore, the patients also differed from the healthy subjects in terms of their circadian amplitude and acrophase (tested jointly) of all three variables (p < 0.001). The demonstration herein of a circadian rhythm in MDA, serum ascorbic and uric acid suggests that these variables could also serve as markers to optimize the timing of treatment and to assess the patient’s response to treatment for further management.     

The Influence of an Extensive Inquiry-Based Field Experience on Pre-Service Elementary Student Teachers’ Science Teaching Beliefs

This study examined the effects of an extensive inquiry-based field experience on pre service elementary teachers’ personal agency beliefs, a composite measure of context beliefs and capability beliefs related to teaching science. The research combined quantitative and qualitative approaches and included an experimental group that utilized the inquiry method and a control group that used traditional teaching methods. Pre- and post-test scores for the experimental and control groups were compared. The context beliefs of both groups showed no significant change as a result of the experience. However, the control group’s capability belief scores, lower than those of the experimental group to start with, declined significantly; the experimental group’s scores remained unchanged. Thus, the inquiry-based field experience led to an increase in personal agency beliefs. The qualitative data suggested a new hypothesis that there is a spiral relationship among teachers’ ability to establish communicative relationships with students, desire for personal growth and improvement, ability to implement multiple instructional strategies, and possession of substantive content knowledge. The study concludes that inquiry-based student teaching should be encouraged in the training of elementary school science teachers. However, the meaning and practice of the inquiry method should be clearly delineated to ensure its correct implementation in the classroom.

Plasma antioxidant vitamins and lipid peroxidation products in pregnancy induced hypertension

It has been suggested that antioxidant systems are impaired in pregnancy induced hypertension and hence patients are exposed to oxidative stress. In order to investigate the relationship between lipid peroxidation and certain antioxidant parameters in blood of pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH) cases, 25 normotensive and 23 PIH samples were studied. In the present study, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances showed a tendency to increase, however the increase remained statistically insignificant. Plasma ascorbic acid level remained unaltered and Vitamin E showed a tendency to increase in the study group. The findings implicate oxidative stress in the disease and cite the biochemical rationale for clinical trials of antioxidants to prevent and treat pregnancy induced hypertension.     

Incremental Relevance Feedback in Japanese Text Retrieval

The application of relevance feedback techniques has been shown to improve retrieval performance for a number of information retrieval tasks. This paper explores incremental relevance feedback for ad hoc Japanese text retrieval; examining, separately and in combination, the utility of term reweighting and query expansion using a probabilistic retrieval model. Retrieval performance is evaluated in terms of standard precision-recall measures, and also using number-to-view graphs. Experimental results, on the standard BMIR-J2 Japanese language retrieval collection, show that both term reweighting and query expansion improve retrieval performance. This is reflected in improvements in both precision and recall, but also a reduction in the average number of documents which must be viewed to find a selected number of relevant items. In particular, using a simple simulation of user searching, incremental application of relevance information is shown to lead to progressively improved retrieval performance and an overall reduction in the number of documents that a user must view to find relevant ones.