Promoting students’ use of epistemic understanding in the evaluation of socioscientific issues through a practice-based approach

Instructional Science - The epistemic understanding of science has always been an important part of science education, and critical engagement with socioscientific issues (SSI) is a desirable...     

Evaluation of the Effects of the Medium of Instruction on Science Learning of Hong Kong Secondary Students: Students’ Self-Concept in Science

A longitudinal study has been conducted to explore the impact of a new language policy for Hong Kong secondary schools on science learning. According to this policy, only schools that recruit the best 25% of students can teach science in English, the students' second language, while the other schools have to teach science in Chinese, the students' native language. The study involved a student cohort of 100 schools starting from S1 for three years. The outcome of science learning is conceptualized as consisting of students' achievement and self-concept in science. This paper reports the possible effects of English-medium instruction (EMI) and Chinese-medium instruction (CMI) on students' self-concept in science, as measured by students' responses to a questionnaire. Comparing with the CMI students, the EMI students showed higher self-concepts in Chinese, English and Mathematics, but a lower self-concept in science. This finding suggests that the EMI students might experience greater learning problems in science than in other subjects, probably because science learning involves abstract thinking and the mastery of scientific terminology which make a high demand on language proficiency. The EMI students showed a greater interest in learning science than the CMI students, indicating that they were more academically oriented. The EMI students, however, formed a lower perceived self-competence in science than their CMI peers, despite that they performed better in the science achievement test than many of the CMI students. This perception supports the view that using English for instruction may have negative effects on science learning. It is also consistent with the observation that the EMI students perceived science as more difficult to understand and learn than the CMI students.     

Classrooms for Children with Developmental Disabilities: Sound‐field and public address amplification systems compared

Background noise poses adverse effects on speech sounds and affects student learning, especially for children with developmental disabilities. Sound‐field and public address amplification systems can help to solve this problem by amplifying speech sounds relative to background noise. This study surveyed school classrooms for children with special needs, and compared the performance of a sound‐field and a portable public address system in classroom environments. Unoccupied room noise levels and reverberation times were measured in eight classrooms at four Hong Kong schools for children with special needs. Speech levels in each classroom were measured under three conditions: without amplification, with public address system amplification, and with sound‐field amplification. Speech‐to‐noise ratios were calculated for each condition. Noise and unamplified speech‐to‐noise ratio values exceeded recommended acoustic standards in all classrooms. When sound‐field and public address amplification systems were installed, speech‐to‐noise ratios improved considerably. When either amplification system was used, a uniform sound‐field resulted. The applicability of both types of amplification system and their relative merits in special education classrooms are discussed.     

Does the Use of Student Feedback Questionnaires Improve the Overall Quality of Teaching?

An investigation was conducted into 3- or 4-year departmental sets of student feedback questionnaire data from one university. Only four out of 25 departments had significant changes to any of the six dimensions in the 3- or 4-year period, and three of these significant changes were falls. There is, therefore, no evidence that the use of the questionnaire was making any contribution to improving the overall quality of teaching and learning of the departments, at least as perceived by the students. If it was, there should have been evidence of rising values. The following reasons why the use of the questionnaire might not have been conducive to improving teaching quality are discussed. The possibility that teaching quality is inherently stable is rejected. It is possible that feedback from the questionnaire was not used effectively. Related to this is whether instructors perceived that the university rewarded good teaching, so felt there was an incentive to make use of the feedback. The emphasis of the system was on appraisal, which might negate any developmental effect. The standard questionnaire and the associated procedures may have lacked flexibility and been inappropriate for innovative forms of teaching. The study questions whether student feedback questionnaires are utilising resources effectively if they are administered in an environment similar to the university in question, which appears reasonably typical.     

Eye movements of monkeys during brightness discrimination and discrimination reversal

Eye movements of two stump-tailed monkeys were measured during performance on an easy and a difficult brightness discrimination problem with and without a relatively long fixation required at the beginning of each trial for purposes of calibration. The duration of an individual fixation of the discriminative stimuli was unrelated to most of the variables that were examined, including problem difficulty, response outcome, whether the S+ or the S? was fixated, and presence or absence of a long fixation at the beginning of a trial. Duration of fixation increased markedly, though temporarily, following reversal of the hard problem. The animals tended to do a minimal amount of scanning of the discriminative stimuli and to fixate most frequently on S+ before responding. In general, the results did not support an account of observing behavior in terms of conventional reinforcement.     

The Introduction of a Computerised Network to Support Educational Change in Hong Kong

In 1998, there was a major shift in the medium of instruction in Hong Kong secondary schools from English to Chinese. This change had many educational advantages. However, its implementation was not without problems, and many of the problems were non-trivial. This article reports the work of a computer network, specifically established to support the educational change and discuss about the strategy to provide effective support to educational changes through computer networking, including issues on service positions, content provision and the development of network culture interaction.     

The perception of generic capabilities and learning environment among undergraduate nursing students after the implementation of a senior intake scheme

Hong Kong has introduced a senior intake admission scheme which is similar to the US model of credit transfer from community college programmes to university bachelor programmes. The study aimed to assess the outcomes, in terms of generic capabilities, of introducing a senior intake articulation scheme to a bachelor of nursing curriculum in Hong Kong. One hundred and seventy-four nursing students completed and returned the Student Engagement Questionnaire. The senior intake students reported significantly higher scores in creative thinking, active learning, teaching for understanding, feedback to assist learning, and relationship between teachers and students than the mainstream students. Self-managed learning and relationship with other students were positively and significantly related to academic performance. The senior intake students appeared to adjust well in university education. Greater effort should be made to nurture their relationship with other students and a review of the denseness of the mainstream curriculum is warranted.     

Innovative Online Assessment Using Confidence Measurement

This research investigates and evaluates an innovative approach to a web based formative assessment system. This self assessment tool is based on the traditional Multiple Choice Questions with additional facilitation of registering the level of confidence of the student's response to each of the options available. The student's generated score is designed to reflect their understanding of the topic under review.A series of experiments involving 93 participating students and 8 instructors were conducted producing some interesting qualitative and quantitative data. Our results show that it appears that this tool has promise as a positive contributor to the instructor and student as they journey along their learning path. In addition this research recommends directions for further studies.