Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Biotechnology of Elementary Education Preservice Teachers: The first Spanish experience

Due to the important impact that biotechnology has on current Western societies, well-informed critical citizens are needed. People prepared to make conscious decisions about aspects of biotechnology that relate to their own lives. Teachers play a central role in all education systems. Thus, the biotechnological literacy of preservice teachers is an important consideration as they will become an influential collective as future teachers of the next generation of children. The attitudes toward science (and biotechnology) that teachers have affect their behavior and influence the way they implement their daily practice of science teaching in school. This study analyzes the attitudes and knowledge of Spanish preservice teachers toward biotechnology. We designed a new survey instrument that was completed by 407 university students who were taking official degree programs in preschool and primary education. Our results point out that although they are aware of biotechnology applications, topics concerning the structure of DNA, management of genetic information inside the cell, genetically modified organism technology and the use of microorganisms as biotechnological tools were not correctly answered. According to our attitude analysis, Spanish preservice teachers could be defined as opponents of genetically modified product acquisition, supporters of biotechnology for medical purposes and highly interested in increasing their knowledge about biotechnology and other scientific advances. Our results show a positive correlation between better knowledge and more positive attitudes toward biotechnology. A Spanish preservice teacher with positive attitudes toward biotechnology tends to be a student with a strong biology background who scored good marks in our knowledge test.     

Prospective Teachers’ Difficulties in Interpreting Elementary Phenomena of Electrostatic Interactions: Indicators of the status of their intuitive ideas

Student teachers were tested before and after a teaching unit on electrostatic interactions in an attempt to consider their intuitive ideas and concept development. A study was made of students’ explanations of basic interactions: those between two charged bodies, and those between a charged body and a neutral body. Two indicators of the cognitive status of the explanations were investigated: “context dependence” and “certainty or confidence index”. This allowed cognitive comparisons to be established between the explanations of different electrostatic interactions, and between the degrees of difficulty they represent for satisfactory conceptual evolution. The greatest difficulties were found with explanations of the phenomena of electrostatic induction. The sample consisted of 52 students in primary school teacher education who participated in a teaching unit designed to overcome these obstacles.     

Mexican parents’ and teachers’ literacy perspectives and practices: construction of cultural capital

This article examines the relationships among the literacy practices engaged in by first-grade children and parents at home and the ways in which these practices are communicated, shaped, and fostered by teachers and administrators in two different sociocultural environments in urban Mexico. The differences observed between the home literacy experiences of children in a working-class and a middle-class community included transgenerational communication of assumptions regarding literacy and schooling, as well as attitudes associated with the parents’ own school experiences. Class-based expectations on the part of teachers not only shaped interactions with parents, but were also reflected in the way the national curriculum was delivered, with a greater emphasis on rote skills and traditional reading instruction in the working-class community. The authors argue that the school plays a role in the co-production of cultural capital in the home through its shaping of some of the literacy practices that children and families undertake.     

Visualising learning design to foster and support good practice and creativity

Applying Bandura's social learning theory, this paper proposes a theoretical framework for analysing the effect of MUD playing on users' self efficacy. Three types of self efficacy – computer self efficacy (CSE), social self efficacy (SSE) and generalized self efficacy (GSE) – are introduced. A possible hypothesis – successful performance, vicarious experience, hearing positive verbal persuasion and massive exposure during MUD playing will raise the CSE, SSE, and GSE of users – is suggested. Finally, a theoretical model explaining the relationship between self efficacy and MUD activities is proposed.

Applicant la théorie de l'apprentissage de Bandura cet article propose un cadre théorique pour analyser les effets de MUD jouant sur l'efficacité personnelle de l'utilisateur. 3 types de celles-ci - computer self-efficiency (CSE) social self efficacy (SSE) et generalisé self-efficiency (GSE) - sont introduits et une hypothèse possible. Les résultats réussis, expérience substituée, écoute de la persuasion verbalement et l'exposition massive au jeu de MUD augmentera le CSE, SSE et GSE des utilisateurs est suggéreé. Finalement un modèle théoritique expliquant le rapport entre l'efficacité personnelle et les activités de MUD est proposé. NDLR. Beaucoup de termes sont introduisable en francais et ont dû être maintenus en anglais.

(MUD: multi-user domain, multi-user dungeon, oder multi-user dimension; eine (virtuelle) Umgebung, in der mehrere Menschen (Spieler) gleichzeitig eingeloggt sein können, um miteinander zu agieren (Rollenspiele).?/?Efficacy: wörtl.: Wirksamkeit - Der Übersetzer). Unter Anwendung von Banduras Sozialer Lerntheorie wird in diesem Beitrag ein theoretischer Rahmen vorgestellt, mit dessen Hilfe man die Wirkung des MUD-Spielens auf das Selbstvertrauen der Teilnehmer analysieren kann. Es werden drei Arten dieses Selbstvertrauens eingeführt - Computer self efficacy (CSE), Social self efficacy (SSE) und Generalized self Efficacy (GSE). Die Hypothese ist, dass durch die erfolgreiche Durchführung Ersatzerfahrungen, das Hören positiver verbaler Bestätigung und das massives Ausgeliefertsein während des MUD-Spielens das Selbstbewußtsein (CSE, SSE und GSE) des Spielers erhöht wird. Zum Schluss wird ein theoretisches Modell zur Beziehung zwischen Selbstvertrauen und MUD-Aktivitäten vorgestellt.     

Researching the competence-based curriculum: preface to a case study of four urban secondary schools

This introductory article accompanies three further articles forming a case study research project undertaken to describe the experience of four urban secondary schools implementing a competence-based curriculum for students in their first year of secondary education. The nature of such competence-based curricula is discussed in the context of secondary schools before providing an outline of the context of each of the case study schools. A democratic and emancipatory view of education provides the rationale for the development of transferable competencies, and this is considered with respect to the challenges of engaging in a cross-disciplinary approach to the curriculum. These challenges are viewed through the lens of Bernstein's concepts of strong and weak framing and horizontal and vertical discourses. Each of the accompanying articles takes up a different aspect of education, focusing on curriculum planning, teaching and learning, and leadership and management respectively. Further challenges with regard to changes in the English curriculum are briefly reflected upon. Finally an outline of the case study methodology which was employed in the study is provided.     

Measuring the local economic impact of universities: an approach that considers uncertainty

The contribution of universities to society is due to the effects generated both in the supply and in the demand side, the latter being associated with the injection of demand as a result of the activities these institutions carry out. This paper focuses on the impact of the demand side by designing a methodology based on Monte Carlo simulations so as to introduce stochastic elements in calculating the economic impact of universities. We apply this methodology to the case of Valencian public universities, introducing stochastic elements in all the elements which imply assumptions with uncertainty. The results highlight the importance of considering uncertainty by generating multipliers which can vary around the average value by 18 % in the case of output and employment, and 10 % in the case of income.     

Cultivating Human Capabilities in Venturesome Learning Environments

The notion of competencies has been a familiar feature of educational reform policies for decades. In this essay, Pádraig Hogan begins by highlighting the contrasting notion of capabilities, pioneered by the research of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. An educational variant of the notion of capabilities then becomes the basis for exploring venturesome environments of learning: environments that are hospitable to the cultivation of such capabilities among students and their teachers. In this exploration Hogan emphasizes disclosing the kinds of relations that constitute such environments. In particular, he identifies four kinds of relations and investigates the interplay among them. In the second part of the essay, Hogan reviews an ongoing research project in Ireland that has been promoting such environments in postprimary education: Teaching and Learning for the 21st Century. Although the project avoids proffering universal claims about “what works,” its rationale and conduct nevertheless call policymakers' attention to what has worked and to the reasons why.