“No,We Should Do It”: Youth Training Youth in Activist Research Methods

The Urban Review - This article explores a 9-month process of youth research capacity-building, beginning with the training of high school and college aged researchers in qualitative methodologies...     

Contemporary Scientists and their Interactions with Non-Scientists: Alternative Companion Stories for School Curricula

Research in Science Education - Students learn more than science knowledge in a science classroom; they also acquire important messages about the purposes and contexts of science. Roberts (2011)...     

Students’ Development of Representational Competence Through the Sense of Touch

Electromagnetism is an umbrella encapsulating several different concepts like electric current, electric fields and forces, and magnetic fields and forces, among other topics. However, a number of studies in the past have highlighted the poor conceptual understanding of electromagnetism concepts by students even after instruction. This study aims to identify novel forms of “hands-on” instruction that can result in representational competence and conceptual gain. Specifically, this study aimed to identify if the use of visuohaptic simulations can have an effect on student representations of electromagnetic-related concepts. The guiding questions is How do visuohaptic simulations influence undergraduate students’ representations of electric forces? Participants included nine undergraduate students from science, technology, or engineering backgrounds who participated in a think-aloud procedure while interacting with a visuohaptic simulation. The think-aloud procedure was divided in three stages, a prediction stage, a minimally visual haptic stage, and a visually enhanced haptic stage. The results of this study suggest that students’ accurately characterized and represented the forces felt around a particle, line, and ring charges either in the prediction stage, a minimally visual haptic stage or the visually enhanced haptic stage. Also, some students accurately depicted the three-dimensional nature of the field for each configuration in the two stages that included a tactile mode, where the point charge was the most challenging one.     

Reading Comprehension of Dutch Deaf Children

In this study, the reading comprehension of deaf children and adolescents in the Netherlands is examined along with their word identification. The reading comprehension of 464 deaf students and the word identification of 504 deaf students between 6 and 20 years of age was examined. The results show the reading comprehension scores of deaf children to be far below the scores of hearing children. On average, the deaf subjects scored at a level equivalent to a hearing child in the first grade. The word identification scores of the deaf children, however, were almost equivalent to the scores of hearing children. Although reading comprehension and word identification appear to be related, this relation does not completely explain the comprehension difficulties encountered by deaf children. Additional factors are required to explain deaf children’s difficulties with reading comprehension.     

Essential competencies for teaching students with hearing loss and additional disabilities

The purpose of this national study was to establish an initial database of the essential competencies needed for working with students who are deaf or hard of hearing with additional disabilities. Surveys were sent to program supervisors across the United States; each supervisor was asked to give the survey to a professional on his or her staff who worked with students who were deaf or hard of hearing with additional disabilities. Respondents indicated that there were 67 specific competencies needed for working with this diverse population of students. A list of the specific competencies and a rationale for providing more in-depth training for teachers is provided.     

Picking the winners by consensus: Grant-giving practice in the Netherlands

The Netherlands form a consensus democracy. In such a society the legitimacy of decisions is of great concern to all. An elaborate system of checks and balances tends to exist and the pressure to join an emerging consensus at meetings is both subtle and tremendously powerful. In the Dutch system of higher education and research the manifestations of the consensus ideal are numerous. This paper highlights them where appropriate. It reviews the Dutch research effort in an international perspective and concludes that R&D expenditure in the Netherlands, measured as a proportion of GDP, is declining. Fairly radical changes in science policy orientation since the 1960s are reviewed and the current frameworks for policy formulation, academic foresight and the organisation of support are sketched. After discussing NWO's different funding instruments, the practices of picking the winners are described in some detail. Three different peer review models are then discussed with special attention to their strengths and weaknesses. The paper's final section is focussed on the evaluation practices in force.     

‘You want us to teach outdoor education where?’ Reflections on teaching outdoor education online

This article reports on the experiences of two lecturers working at the University of Tasmania required to teach outdoor and sustainability education (O&SE) courses online. Using an (auto)ethonographic case-study approach, the lecturers were interviewed with a view to exploring their perceptions, challenges, ethical dilemmas, tensions, opportunities and experiences in this space. A number of themes emerged, including commitment to quality teaching and learning, the role of experience, and experiential learning, in the online space, the challenge of fostering a connection to place, difficulties faced when trying to develop a learning community, and the role of professional learning and support in terms of pedagogy and technology in the online space. These themes, and their implications for teaching and learning in higher education both generally, and specifically in O&SE, are discussed in light of what is a mounting body of literature exploring the move to online delivery in higher education.     

Search for Symbol Sense Behavior: Students in Upper Secondary Education Solving Algebraic Physics Problems

Research in Science Education - Students in upper secondary education encounter difficulties in applying mathematics in physics. To improve our understanding of these difficulties, we examined...