Classroom Implementation of Context‐based Chemistry Education by Teachers: The relation between experiences of teachers and the design of materials

Worldwide, a tendency is visible in which upper secondary science curricula are innovated in the direction of context‐based education. Crucial to these innovations is the way teachers interact with newly developed teaching materials and implement them in classroom practice. The focus of our research is to identify characteristics of the interaction between innovative context‐based materials and teachers that hinder or facilitate classroom implementation as intended by the designers. Four cases of classroom implementation by four experienced teachers with different degrees of experiences in context‐based education, all implementing ‘Chemie im Kontext’ (CHiK) teaching materials, were carried out using a previously developed framework for analysis. It was found that a crucial aspect of CHiK, that of taking students' questions and using them as an orientation as the ‘focal event’ for the following lessons, was difficult to implement. The employed contexts are too general and broad to be effectively applicable as a setting in which activities such as students developing their own ideas and exploring them logically take place. Therefore, it is recommended that extensive teacher professionalization is required on this aspect to show teachers its value and to increase their repertoire of necessary teaching activities.     

Hypothetico-deductive reasoning skill and concept acquisition: Testing a constructivist hypothesis

This study tested the constructivist hypothesis that the acquisition of domain-specific conceptual knowledge (declarative knowledge) requires use of general procedural knowledge. More specifically, it was hypothesized that use of a general pattern of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is necessary for the acquisition of novel domain-specific concepts. To test this hypothesis 314 high school biology and chemistry students were first tested to determine whether or not they were skilled in the use of hypothetico-deductive reasoning. Based on this test, students were classified as reflective, transitional, or intuitive thinkers. All students were then presented with a series of four concept-acquisition tasks. It was predicted that reflective (hypothetico-deductive) thinkers would acquire the concepts while intuitive (empirico-inductive) thinkers would not. Transitional thinkers were expected to be partially successful. These predictions were confirmed as skill in hypothetico-deductive reasoning (developmental level), but not age, was highly correlated with performance on the concept acquisition tasks (X² = 71.14, p < 0.00001). This result was interpreted to be supportive of the constructivist hypothesis.     

Like father, like son? Familial aggregation of physicians among medical and psychology students

Various research findings, mostly from Anglo-American countries, evidence the medical profession to be strongly familial and further suggest that a medical family background may be associated with study success in medical undergraduates. This study explored the familial aggregation of the medical profession among 1-year cohort samples of medical and psychology students in Austria. Whereas physicians only amount to about 0.4% of the total Austrian population, 45.8% of final-year medical students reported any and 25.6% a first-degree medical relative. Male students more likely had physicians in their family than female students and both sexes more likely had male than female medical relatives. Male final-year medical students with first-degree medical relatives were significantly younger than those without, thus indicating faster study progress in this group. Physicians also ran in the families of psychology students, as did psychologists and psychotherapists. Implications of these findings, study limitations, and avenues for future research are discussed.     

What do tests of “formal” reasoning actually measure?

Tests of formal operational reasoning derived from Piagetian theory have been found to be effective predictors of academic achievement. Yet Piaget's theory regarding the underlying nature of formal operations and their employment in specific contexts has run into considerable empirical difficulty. The primary purpose of this study was to present the core of an alternative theory of the nature of advanced scientific reasoning. That theory, referred to as the multiple-hypothesis theory, argues that tests of formal operational reasoning actually measure the extent to which persons have acquired the ability to initiate reasoning with more than one specific antecedent condition, or if they are unable to imagine more than one antecedent condition, they are aware that more than one is possible; therefore conclusions that are drawn are tempered by this possibility. As a test of this multiple-hypothesis theory of advanced reasoning and the contrasting Piagetian theory of formal operations, a sample of 922 college students were first classified as concrete operational, transitional, or formal operational, based upon responses to standard Piagetian measures of formal operational reasoning. They were then administered seven logic tasks. Actual response patterns to the tasks were analyzed and found to be similar to predicted response patterns derived from the multiple-hypothesis theory and were different from those predicted by Piagetian theory. Therefore, support was obtained for the multiple-hypothesis theory. The terms intuitive and reflective were suggested to replace the terms concrete operational and formal operational to refer to persons at varying levels of intellectual development.     

Sound and faulty arguments generated by preservice biology teachers when testing hypotheses involving unobservable entities*

A sample of preservice biology teachers (biology majors) enrolled in a teaching methods course formulated and attempted to test six hypotheses to answer a causal question about why water rose in a jar inverted over a burning candle placed in a pan of water. The students submitted a lab report in which arguments and evidence for testing each hypothesis were presented in an if/then/therefore hypothetico‐predictive form. Analysis of written arguments revealed considerable success when students were able to manipulate observable hypothesized causes. However, when the hypothesized causes were unobservable, such that they could be only indirectly tested, performance dropped, as shown by use of three types of faulty arguments: (a) arguments that had missing or confused elements, (b) arguments whose predictions did not follow from hypotheses and planned tests, and (c) arguments that failed to consider alternative hypotheses. Science is an enterprise in which unobservable theoretical entities and processes (e.g., atoms, genes, osmosis, and photosynthesis) are often used to explain observable phenomena. Consequently, if it is assumed that effective teaching requires prior understanding, then it follows that these future teachers have yet to develop adequate hypothesis‐testing skills and sufficient awareness of the nature of science to teach science in the inquiry mode advocated by reform guidelines. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 237–252, 2002     

Translation,cross-cultural adaptation,validity, reliability and stability of the Dutch Injury - Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport (I-PRRS-NL) scale

The Injury Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport (I-PRRS) scale measures the psychological readiness of injured athletes to resume sports participation. The aim of this study was to translate and culturally adapt the I-PRRS scale into Dutch (I-PRRS-NL) and assess its validity, reliability, and stability in patients after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR). The original I-PRRS was translated and culturally adapted from English into Dutch, and tested for clinimetric quality. To assess concurrent validity, 150 patients completed the I-PRRS-NL scale and five questionnaires measuring related constructs 3–16 months after ACLR. All predefined hypotheses regarding correlations between the I-PRRS-NL scale and these questionnaires were confirmed, indicating good concurrent validity. For test-retest reliability, 107 patients completed the I-PRRS-NL scale again two weeks later. The I-PRRS-NL scale showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha 0.94) and test-retest reliability (ICC 0.89). Standard error of measurement was 4.2 and smallest detectable change was 11.6. No systematic bias between test and retest was found. As the scale appears unstable at item level, only the total score should be used. Overall, the I-PRRS-NL scale showed sufficient validity and reliability to assess the psychological readiness to resume sports among Dutch-speaking patients after ACLR.     

The persistence of clinical questions across shifts on an intensive care unit: an observational pilot study

How do clinical questions emerge and move toward resolution in the intensive care setting over the course of 24 hours? In a 20-bed surgical intensive care unit in a large, tertiary-care teaching hospital, informationists shadowed clinicians for 2 48-hour periods to record questions, noting when they were asked and whether they were answered. Thirty-eight percent of 112 recorded questions remained unanswered. Some unanswered questions persisted across shifts, and clinicians'' information-seeking behaviors changed over time. Clinical information services can be improved and integrated more fully into clinical workflows based on a fuller understanding of the life cycle of clinical inquiry.     

Home Away from Home: Acclimatization of Filipino Elderly from being Home to a Sense of being “At Home” in an Elderly Institution

This grounded study examined the process of acclimatization or the process of changing perspectives of a person so as to get used to or feel “at home” among a select group of Filipino elderly in a nursing care facility. As institutionalization of the elderly is not typical in the Philippine context, varied responses were analyzed to understand the factors and the course that an elderly person undergoes over a set period of time to achieve acclimatization. Twenty elderly (n = 20) residents were purposively recruited and subjected to an in-depth interview that chronicled their experiences on their previous and present lives and on the process by which they were able to adjust to a relatively new setting. Preliminarily, a robotfoto was devised to obtain demographic data including visitation frequencies and familial relationships, and this was followed by an in-depth interview. Through the constant comparison method, an interesting model called the Hourglass of Acclimatization emerged. This model yielded two distinct phases contributing to successful acclimatization. One is the Conversion phase, or imbibing the main notion of transforming one's perspectives of him or herself and his or her environment; there is also the Immersion phase, which describes how an elderly involves him or herself completely into the life he or she is supposed to live. This emerged model can contribute to the development of nursing interventions focusing on elderly experiences in the entire course of relocation to a new environment other than what they call “home.”