Principles and practices of designing narrative distance for transformative learning experiences

Narratives have a unique ability to grant listeners emotional and cognitive space in a way that encourages them to choose how they will make sense of a story. This effect, called narrative distance, also has the potential to help create transformative learning experiences. This article is a qualitative research study of experts who regularly design for narrative distance. Six experts from a variety of fields were interviewed about the principles and practices of designing for narrative distance with the purpose of discovering ways that instructional designers can better facilitate transformative learning experiences. A variety of principles and practices on how to create narrative distance are categorized under four themes: cognitive space, emotional space, invite change, and meaningful content. General comments are also given on the application of these insights to instructional design along with further suggestions for research.     

We Look More, Listen More, Notice More: Impact of Sustained Professional Development on Head Start Teachers�� Inquiry-Based and Culturally-Relevant Science Teaching Practices

Despite many scholars?? recommendations, science is often avoided during early childhood education. Among the reasons provided by early childhood teachers for the exclusion of science from their daily routines included science anxiety, low self-efficacy with respect to teaching science, lack of experience participating in science activities as students, or the notion that literacy and language are more important during the early years. In minority populations the problem is even greater due to identification of science with the ??culture of. This article presents results from Ah Neen Dush, a sustained and transformative professional development program for Head Start teachers on an American Indian Reservation. The goal of the program is to support early childhood teachers in developing inquiry-based and culturally-relevant teaching practices. Through analysis of teachers?? classroom practices, surveys and interviews, we explore changes in teachers?? attitudes toward science and inquiry-based practices. Classroom observations were conducted using CLASS (Classroom assessment Scoring System), a tool used to evaluate the quality of classroom interactions. After 1 year of professional development teachers?? attitudes were found to improve and after 2 years teachers classroom practices were more inquiry-based with statistically significant increases in CLASS observation scores.     

My Attitudes Toward Science (MATS): the development of a multidimensional instrument measuring students’ science attitudes

The number of students in the United States choosing science, technology, engineering or mathematics careers is declining at a time when demand for these occupations is rapidly increasing. Numerous efforts have been undertaken to reverse this trend, yet results are uncertain. One’s attitude is key to many choices one makes, and this includes, for many, what career is pursued. Hence, teachers, informal science educators and researchers often wish to measure children’s attitudes towards science using a pretest and a posttest to determine the effects of a curriculum, an activity or an intervention. However, measuring children’s attitudes toward science has been problematic because of both the limited use of basic psychometrics in checking reliability and validity of instruments and the lack of a single construct of students’ attitudes towards science being surveyed. This article reports the development and testing of an instrument for measuring students’ science attitudes across several dimensions. Thirty-two scientists and teachers from the northeastern and south central United States participated in content validity trials. The instrument was field tested with 549 children (92 elementary-school students, 327 middle-school students and 130 high-school students) from 6 rural and suburban school systems located in the northeastern United States to determine inter-item reliability for each dimension. The resulting instrument, entitled My Attitudes Toward Science (MATS), has 40 items that measure four dimensions: (1) Attitude towards the subject of science; (2) Desire to become a scientist; (3) Value of science to society; and (4) Perception of scientists. The MATS, as a multidimensional instrument, can measure several facets of students’ attitude toward science and is designed to be used across grades levels and to be scored easily.     

The sound of study: Student experiences of listening in the university soundscape

The students from three universities (Groningen, Oldenburg and the University of Applied Sciences in Utrecht) were surveyed on the experience of hearing and listening in their studies. Included in the online survey were established questionnaires on hearing loss, tinnitus, hyperacusis, a subscale on psychosocial strain resulting from impaired hearing and a questionnaire about students’ perceptions of listening ease in study environments. Results from the 10,466 students who completed the survey (13% response rate) are highlighted, with particular attention to listening ease and measures proposed by students for improving it. The number of students having problems with hearing and listening transpires to be substantially larger when research is not constrained to students with a recognised hearing impairment, suggesting that listening is primarily a sociocultural performance and achievement rather than an artefact of physical attributes. One finding from our survey is that classroom practices could be more effective if study soundscapes are improved, while universities might exercise greater inclusive responsibility for study as a high quality sensory experience for the benefit of all students.     

Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education: a critical review of published questionnaires

Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education affect its successful implementation within mainstream schools. This paper reviews nine questionnaires which capture primary school teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion, with the aim to support researchers in selecting the most appropriate measure according to the purpose of their study. Most of the reviewed questionnaires showed acceptable reliability and validity. The Multidimensional Attitudes towards Inclusive Education Scale (MATIES) and the Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Revised Scale (SACIE-R) were the only questionnaires with adequate psychometric properties which addressed the affective, cognitive and behavioural components of teachers’ attitudes. As another psychometrically sound scale, the Teachers’ Attitude towards Inclusion Scale (TAIS) was found to use more up-to-date terminology and suitably addressed the cognitive and behavioural components. This paper provides a useful resource to facilitate the appropriate selection of questionnaires that measure teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion.     

The influence of topic knowledge, domain knowledge, and interest on the comprehension of scientific exposition

In this study, we explored the influence of subject-matter knowledge and interest on college students' comprehension of scientific exposition. Two forms of subject-matter knowledge were considered: Passage-specific (i.e., topic) knowledge and general (i.e., domain) knowledge. College students read two passages from physics, one dealing with Stephen Hawking and Grand Unification Theory, and one about the search for the truth quark. Students' topic knowledge and domain knowledge were tested before reading the passages. After reading each passage, students rated their interest in what they read. Comprehension measures were then completed for each passage. We performed regression analyses to determine the effects of subject-matter knowledge and interest on the comprehension scores for each passage. For the more technical Quarks passage, domain knowledge and interest were both significant predictors of comprehension. For the more personally-involving Hawking passage, topic knowledge, domain knowledge, and interest were significant predictors of comprehension performance. Overall, students were more interested in less abstruse and more personally-involving information for both passages.     

Jugendliche zwischen Entwicklung und Entfaltung

Der Beitrag thematisiert jugendliche Orientierungsmuster zur Ausgestaltung der Lebensphase Jugend und deren Ver?nderung über die Zeit. Diese entstehen im komplexen Zusammenhang von wahrgenommenen Ressourcen, Einstellungen und Erwartungen Jugendlicher im Hinblick auf die Anforderung der Bew?ltigung von Entwicklungsaufgaben. Zur Abbildung dieser Muster wird auf zwei zentrale Dimensionen zurückgegriffen: auf Entfaltungsorientierung, die den Moratoriumsgedanken, und Entwicklungsorientierung, die den transitiven Charakter der Jugendphase widerspiegelt. Aus der Kombination der Orientierungen Entwicklung und Entfaltung im Anschluss an die Verknüpfung des Transitions-und Moratoriumsgedankens lassen sich vier Typen ableiten. Die Zugeh?rigkeit zu einem Typ ist nicht als statisch zu fassen, sondern ver?ndert sich entsprechend der zunehmenden Bew?ltigung von Entwicklungsaufgaben. Die Ergebnisse veranschaulichen die weitreichende Bedeutung beruflicher Orientierungen Jugendlicher im Zusammenhang mit dem bevorstehenden übergang in den Beruf, die gleichsam Auswirkungen für den gesamten Komplex jugendlicher Orientierungsmuster (Typen) zur Gestaltung der Jugendphase zeitigen.     

Development and reliability quantification of a novel test set-up for measuring footwear bending stiffness

Since footwear flexibility impacts functional design factors, numerous studies have investigated footwear bending stiffness. However, the various methods used to measure footwear bending stiffness have some limitations. Hence, the scope of this study was to develop and quantify the reliability of a novel test set-up for measuring footwear bending stiffness. A test set-up consisting of a hydraulic testing machine, a bending apparatus and a fixation unit was created that fulfilled the requirements specified in the initial phase of the study. The test set-up was evaluated by testing 15 different boots in three series of measurements. Bending stiffness of the boots ranged from 0.61 ± 0.03 to 2.38 ± 0.08 Nm/°. Two-way analysis of variance test yielded that the test set-up enabled the reliable measurement of footwear bending stiffness. Relative measurement uncertainty ranged from 1.3 to 6.1 %.