Interaction between examination type,anxiety state,and academic achievement in college science; an action-oriented research

The trait anxiety profile of future science teachers, as well as their preferences concerning types of examinations in science and mathematics, have been surveyed prior to the administration—within the various science courses—of several traditional and nontraditional types of examinations and the assessment of students' state anxieties as well as their respective performance, i.e., their academic achievements. Our major findings are that

• (a) Our students prefer by far examinations in which the emphasis is on understanding and analyzing rather than on knowing and “remembering,” that the use of any relevant material during the examinations be permitted, and that the time duration be practically unlimited (e.g., “take-home”–type examinations).
• (b) Students' state anxiety correlates with the type of the examination, with a tendency towards somewhat higher anxiety for females. The preferred types of examinations reduce test anxiety significantly, and result in higher grades accordingly.
• (c) The reduction of anxiety and the improvement in achievements as a function of the examination type are far more significant for low achievers compared with medium and high achievers.
• (d) Although teachers are aware of the student preferences, they persist in giving their students their own “pet”-type examinations.

These results are discussed in terms of the implications for upgrading both science education and college student testing and assessment mechanisms.     

Modeling and Measuring High School Students’ Computational Thinking Practices in Science

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Despite STEM education communities recognizing the importance of integrating computational thinking (CT) into high school curricula, computation still...     

Designing Educational Video Games to Be Objects-to-Think-With

In this article we propose that educational game design should work to create games as objects-to-think-with—games that engage players in the exploration of and experimentation with personally interesting questions around domain-relevant representations. We argue that this design focuses on developing tools and interactions that the player can use for inquiry and productive thinking. As a step toward achieving this goal, we propose the constructible authentic representations design principle and illustrate this principle using a prototype game, Particles!, for exploring the particulate nature of matter. Observations of game play and interviews with 9 children ages 11–14 suggest that core game representations and mechanics provided players with a space for engaging in useful scientific practices and knowledge resources for reasoning about the important role molecular structure plays in material properties beyond the game. We explore how this design proposal extends and complements existing constructivist game design frameworks. Furthermore, we suggest that the framework of games as objects-to-think-with should push the educational game design community to consider the complexity and nuance of cognition and to embrace and champion the learner in game design.     

Strategies for environmental education within contemporary science education

Most of secondary school science curricula discriminate neatly between two types of activity: knowing the world, on the one hand, and reflecting upon this knowledge, on the other. Moreover, this knowledge is usually based on an empiricist epistemology. The conceptual structure of a part of a typical secondary school physics curriculum is analysed from this point of view. This epistemological rationale causes difficulties in the understanding of scientific concepts which are predictable from the standpoint of the assimilation theory of Ausubel (1978). The difficulties are a consequence of the arbitrariness and lack of intelligibility of the concepts and problems presented to the student. Finally, a different epistemological rationale is proposed: that provided by genetic epistemology.     

From assumption of knowledge to knowledgeable considerations: a class activity on ‘ionizing radiation and its biological effects’

A class activity developed as a framework for the introduction of the topic of ‘Ionizing radiation and its biological effects’ is described. A central component of the activity is a game in which students compare their own estimations of exposure levels in different situations, prior to and after the study. It was found that both students and their teachers had similar and mostly wrong, preconceptions. This activity is aimed at encouraging students to adopt an informed approach whenever dealing with issues of scientific content.     

Response Inhibition in Preschoolers at Familial Risk for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Behavioral and Electrophysiological Stop‐Signal Study

Children participating in the Ben‐Gurion Infant Development Study were assessed with a dynamic‐tracking version of the stop‐signal task at the age of 5 years. The sample consisted of 60 males. Stop‐signal reaction time (SSRT) was correlated with concurrent ratings of the child's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. Paternal symptoms measured in the child's early infancy predicted the child's performance in the stop‐signal task: Paternal inattentiveness predicted SSRT, whereas hyperactivity predicted error proportion. Maternal symptoms were not correlated with the performance of the child in the task. A subsample of children, who were tested while electrophysiological brain activity was measured, showed that having higher ADHD symptomatology, especially hyperactivity, correlated with less activity in the brain areas that are usually recruited by children for successful inhibition.     

e-Learning for depth in the Semantic Web

In this paper, we describe concept parsing algorithms, a novel semantic analysis methodology at the core of a new pedagogy that focuses learners’ attention on deep comprehension of the conceptual content of learned material. Two new e‐learning tools are described in some detail: interactive concept discovery learning and meaning equivalence reusable learning objects. These semantic technologies were developed at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and Adaptive Technology Resource Centre of Faculty of Information Studies (ATRC/FIS) at the University of Toronto; they were tested since 2001 in several academic institutions in Canada and at the Russian Academy of Sciences (patents pending: US patent 6,953,344 B2, USPO ?20050149510; Copyright 2005, PARCEP Inc.). We describe the rationale for developing these instructional tools, their main characteristics and results of several evaluative implementations that show their potential to enhance learning outcomes and to provide authentic, credible, evidence‐based formative assessments of learning processes.     

The Rationality Debate: Application of Cognitive Psychology to Mathematics Education

Research in mathematics education usually attempts to look into students’ learning and other mental processes. It could therefore be expected to build on knowledge acquired within the academic discipline of cognitive psychology. Our aim in this paper is to show how some recent developments in cognitive psychology can help interpret empirical results from mathematics education. In particular, we will be looking into the heuristics-and-biases research by Kahneman and Tversky, the alternative views by Gigerenzer et al., and the more recent dual-process theory that has come to play a central role in interpreting this research. We first introduce the relevant background from cognitive psychology and survey its connections to previous work in mathematics education; then we apply this theoretical framework for re-interpreting previously-published empirical data from mathematics education research. We conclude with a discussion of potential theoretical and practical benefits of such synthesis.