Evolution Education in Papua New Guinea: trainee teachers’ views

Educated Papua New Guineans’ conceptual ecologies need to accommodate competing and conflicting traditional ethnoscientific, Western religious and modern scientific paradigms. Papua New Guinea is a constitutionally self-declared ‘Christian country’ and evolution is a controversial issue. The upper secondary school biology syllabus contains a terminating unit on evolution but the curriculum is of expatriate design and the rapid localisation of senior educational positions makes the views of indigenous teaching personnel a high research priority, particularly in the light of the current upgrading of secondary teacher training to degree level. This paper presents data arising from a study of trainee primary and secondary science teachers’ views towards evolution education. Primary science trainees were found to exhibit a poor awareness of the centrality of evolution to modern biology. For secondary science trainees, it was found that exposure to upper secondary school biology, in spite of adding little to students’ knowledge about evolution, was associated with their increasingly positive attitudes towards evolution education, as was the dual acceptance of evolution and religious belief.     

Internationalization,nationalism, and global competitiveness: a comparison of approaches to higher education in China and Japan

Asia Pacific Education Review - This paper explores the ways in which policies for national identity formation and internationalization interact to complement and contradict each other in the...     

Perceptions of challenge in science learning

Prior research has indicated that decisions made by students about their learning are influenced by perceptions of various factors related to the task and classroom context. This influence seems to be mediated by the extent to which the learner perceives personal challenge in what is done. This concept of personal challenge comprises both cognitive (demand) and affective (motivation) components. In the current paper, response trends of almost 4000 secondary science students to a questionnaire structured according to factors associated with challenge are considered by school, year level and gender. These trends indicate that challenge in science diminishes as students move from Years 7 to 10, due to increasingly negative perceptions of many of these factors. Results also indicate however that, through purposeful change in teaching perspectives and practices, teachers can establish and sustain students’ sense of challenge in classroom learning.     

“阿兹特克”水晶头骨的背后

看过《夺宝奇兵》系列电影的人都知道在每一个故事里必定有一件稀世珍宝,让人为之疯狂,还令不少人赔上性命——能被斯蒂芬·斯皮尔伯格和乔治·卢卡斯选上,肯定大有来头。前三集的宝物分别是法柜、安卡拉圣石和圣杯。那么,这一次的水晶头骨又隐藏着什么惊世秘密呢?在一般人眼里,水晶头骨或许只是外型精美的雕刻品,最特别的地方也不过是其原材料。然而,对那些相信起自然力量的人来说,水晶头骨可能代表厄运、灾难,也可能代表希望,甚至有治疗疾病的作用。有些人认为水晶头骨的作用类似于水晶球,能让人看见过去、现在和未来。他们声称这些头骨会发出精神力量、香味甚至声音,并把它们和玛雅传说挂钩。备受争议的不仅仅是水晶头骨的意义,还有它们谜一样的历史——有人认为它们有数千年历史,可能是外星人或某种失落文明的遗物;也有人说它们是只有几百年历史的赝品,人们不过编了几个故事来抬高价钱。究竟孰是孰非,一起来听听专家的看法。     

The Reporting and Analysis of Research Findings for Within–Subject Designs: Methodological Issues for Meta–Analysis

Abstract

The results of studying the older athlete provide inference to the possible physiological limits found at various ages and the effect of physical activity on the aging process. As a result of the increase in development of atherosclerosis with age and the high intensity effort involved in track competition, the importance of a maximal stress test prior to entering into competition was discussed. The results presented showed 40- to 75-yr-old champion track competitors to have excellent performance, cardiopulmonary function, and body composition characteristics when compared to sedentary and moderately trained subjects of similar ages. Although maximal performance and oxygen intake decreased with age, a dramatic reduction did not occur until after age 65. Body composition measures, maximal pulmonary ventilation, resting heart rate and blood pressure, and serum lipids were similar for subjects up to age 65, but showed a significant decrement thereafter. The causes of the decrement in performance and physiological function with age could not be determined, but were thought to result from a combination of factors, e.g., aging, quantity and quality of conditioning, and number of years in continuous training.     

Causal Learning Across Culture and Socioeconomic Status

Extensive research has explored the ability of young children to learn about the causal structure of the world from patterns of evidence. These studies, however, have been conducted with middle-class samples from North America and Europe. In the present study, low-income Peruvian 4- and 5-year-olds and adults, low-income U.S. 4- and 5-year-olds in Head Start programs, and middle-class children from the United States participated in a causal learning task (N = 435). Consistent with previous studies, children learned both specific causal relations and more abstract causal principles across culture and socioeconomic status (SES). The Peruvian children and adults generally performed like middle-class U.S. children and adults, but the low-SES U.S. children showed some differences.     

Back to school: An application of human capital theory for mature workers

There is a vast literature on the decision to enroll in higher education, but it focuses almost entirely on traditional students: 18 year olds graduating from high school. Yet less than half of students at degree-granting institutions are in the traditional 18–22 age range; nearly 40% are at least 25. This paper examines the enrollment behavior of persons 25 or older. We use data from a large-scale 1998 Department of Labor (DOL) policy demonstration in Greater Baltimore. By studying the behavior of older people we can examine factors such as age, earnings and marital status that vary little among the much-studied traditional students. Our results conform to the (rarely tested) predictions of human capital theory that age and opportunity costs are impediments to enrollment. We also find that where you live has a substantial impact on whether you return to school.