Teaching Science as a Process,Not a Set of Facts

Science & Education - The widespread misperception of science as a deliverer of irrefutable facts, rather than a deliberative process, is undermining public trust in science. Science education...     

Inducing chemotactic and haptotactic cues in microfluidic devices for three-dimensional in vitro assays

Microfluidic devices allow for the production of physiologically relevant cellular microenvironments by including biomimetic hydrogels and generating controlled chemical gradients. During transport, the biomolecules interact in distinct ways with the fibrillar networks: as purely diffusive factors in the soluble fluid or bound to the matrix proteins. These two main mechanisms may regulate distinct cell responses in order to guide their directional migration: caused by the substrate-bound chemoattractant gradient (haptotaxis) or by the gradient established within the soluble fluid (chemotaxis). In this work 3D diffusion experiments, in combination with ELISA assays, are performed using microfluidic platforms in order to quantify the distribution of PDGF-BB and TGF-β₁ across collagen and fibrin gels. Furthermore, to gain a deeper understanding of the fundamental processes, the experiments are reproduced by computer simulations based on a reaction-diffusion transport model. This model yields an accurate prediction of the experimental results, confirming that diffusion and binding phenomena are established within the microdevice.     

An ‘appropriate’ test taker: the everyday classroom during the national testing period in school year three in Sweden

This article draws on data from a bigger project where we explore what is taking place in the daily life of classrooms during the national testing period in mathematics for 9–10-year-old children in Sweden. Data were produced by observations, video-recordings and interviews with children. The article shows on a micro level how assessment trends, on a macro level, affect children. It further focuses how children through different repertoires of time position themselves as ‘appropriate’ test takers.     

Design Theory and Design Practice within Sloyd Education

This article is part of a formal research project concerning design as an integrated part of sloyd education. The concept of ‘sloyd education’ is used in the Nordic countries as an umbrella term for different educational crafts whose scientific basis is to be found in the university subjects Sloyd Education and Crafts Science. The aim of the whole project is to develop methods for teaching design theory and design practice within sloyd teacher education. By analysing the design processes of five design students during an MA course in Fashion and Textiles, an account of the kind of design knowledge the students are working on during the process, and how iterativeness and multi‐layered procedures, which are characteristic for the design process of a single student, is built up. The results of the analysis show that during the design process the students concentrate on technological and aesthetical knowledge and that the design process can be very varied and have its starting points both in images and in concrete materials.     

International dimensions: A challenge for European engineering education

Internationalization of higher education is a concept that often is transformed into a set of activities that has a certain international dimension. This can be done more or less consciously. Issues such as development of skills and knowledge, creation of an international culture on campus and the involvement of an international dimension in all activities concern university management. These are issues university managers have to deal with. But it also opens up new opportunities. The broader issues of internationalization require a strong involvement of the academic leaders and of senior officers. This contribution describes how changes around us force universities to take action and introduce clear policies for internationalization of higher education, based on the needs institutions for higher engineering education should respond to. Special attention is given to a recent Swedish evaluation on the effects of student exchange. This study is compared with experience at Chalmers.     

The development of interests in the Swedish comprehensive school

In this study pupils in grades 1 through 9 (ages 7–16) of the Swedish comprehensive school rated their interests in mathematics and Swedish (separately for reading and writing). They also judged other aspects of their school work and situation, such as need for control and challenging tasks, their perception of the teacher, their concern with how well other pupils succeeded, and their well-being at school. Teachers rated their level of achievement in Swedish and mathematics. It was found that interests tended to decrease over time, especially in mathematics. High achievers were more interested but they as well as low achievers showed a drop in interest over the years at school. Need for control rose and general well-being dropped. The developmental trends of the interest variables could not be accounted for by a rising need for control. The decrements in challenge and well-being could explain a part of these trends in Swedish but not in mathematics.     

Interests in School Subjects and Vocational Preference 1

Sjöberg, L. & Drottz, B.‐M. 1983. Interests in School Subject and Vocational Preference. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 27, 165‐182. A group of Swedish high school students rated their interests in school subject areas. Interests were related to perceived effort, ability as regards grades and vocational preferences as well as to perceived job market prospects in the vocations. It was found that interests could be well accounted for by the logical appeal of the subject areas and, to some extent, by their practical value. Interests were related to perceived ability and to perceived effort in structural model analyses applied to intercorrelations. Vocational preferences were only weakly related to interests in subject areas, though most students stated that their choices were based on ‘interest’. Preferences among vocations were correlated especially with individual job market prospects.

     

Happy objects,happy men? Affect and materiality in vocational training

This article investigates the prevailing social inertia of vocational training. Previous research indicates that gendered social norms contribute to sustaining gender segregation. Few studies, however, have paid attention to how the interplay of emotional and material factors impact on gender norms in vocational training. The article builds on an ethnographic study in a Swedish upper-secondary educational programme traditionally dominated by masculinity norms, namely the Building and Construction programme. Employing Sara Ahmed's notion of happy objects, the article centres on vocational students' expressed joy in the practical work and shows how joy contributes to sustaining and challenging dominant masculinity patterns. Though students enjoyed practical work, the study indicates that a particular version of happiness was normalised which ruled out non-heterosexual and female students. The article suggests that further studies of social inertia in vocational training need to account for the interconnectedness of the emotional, material, and corporeal dimensions of gender.     

What lies behind graphicacy? Relating students' results on a test of graphically represented quantitative information to formal academic achievement

Based on studies carried out on qualitative data an instrument was constructed for investigating how larger numbers of students handle graphics. This test, consisting of 18 pages, each with its own graphic display(s) and a set of tasks, was distributed to 363 students, 15–16 years of age, from five different schools. The format of the questions varied, as did the format of the graphics. As students' performance was expected to be multidimensional, confirmatory factor analysis was carried out with a structural equation modeling technique. In addition to the identification of a general graphicacy‐test factor (Gen) and an end‐of‐test effect (End′), a narrative dimension (Narr′) was vaguely indicated. This model was then related to a six‐factor model of students' formal academic achievement measured by their leaving certificates from compulsory education. The strongest correlation obtained was between the general graphicacy‐test dimension (Gen) and a mathematic/science factor (MathSc′) in the grades model. In addition, substantial relationships were detected between the Gen factor and both an overall school achievement factor (SchAch) and a language factor (Lang′) in the grades model. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 43–62, 2006