bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Textbook treatments and students' understanding of acceleration
Authors: Dall'Alba Gloria , Walsh Eleanor , Bowden John , Martin Elaine , Masters Geofferey , Ramsden Paul , Stephanou Andrew 
Published: October 2006

AbstractA single science textbook often provides the syllabus for courses at upper secondary and tertiary levels, and may be used as a principal source of information or explanation. The research reported in this article challenges such practices. The ways in which the concept, acceleration, is treated in physics textbooks is compared with understandings of the concept demonstrated by final‐year secondary (Year 12) and first‐year university students. Some students' understandings are shown to be incomplete in ways that parallel misleading or inaccurate textbook treatments of the concept. In addition to misleading or inaccurate statements, the limitations of some textbook treatments of acceleration were found to include: lack of attempts to make explicit relationships with other concepts, failure to point out when it is appropriate to use particular definitions or that an alternative definition might be more appropriate in specific situations, inclusion of operational definitions without conceptual explanations, and a focus on quantitative treatments while overlooking the development of qualitative understanding. Two principal aspects that distinguished the ways in which the students understood acceleration were identified: (a) the relation between acceleration and velocity; and (b) the relation between acceleration and force(s). The results of the study have implications for teaching and, in particular, for the use of textbooks in teaching. These implications are discussed in the article.
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and interpretive research in science education
Authors: Roth Wolff‐Michael 
Published: October 2006

AbstractWithin the current methodological debate, notions successful in the natural sciences are rallied by social sciences researchers to support their own methodological approaches. However, problems of understanding the physical principles have often clouded the issue. One such notion under discussion is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the derivative notions of indeterminacy, uncertainty, precision, and observer–observed interaction. This article discusses these notions and their applications to social science research. Implications are drawn for research in science education.
Portuguese science teachers' education, attitudes, and practice relative to the issue of alternative conceptions
Authors: Sequeira Manuel , Leite Laurinda , Duarte Maria da Conceição 
Published: October 2006

AbstractMany studies have shown that students of all school levels hold alternative conceptions that differ from the scientific conceptions transmitted by the school. These results raise some questions about the efficacy of traditional teaching and stress the need for using teaching strategies that explicitly take into account the alternative conceptions that students bring to the science classes.This issue has recently been raised and widely discussed throughout Portugal and the proposals for the new science syllabuses advise teachers to take it into account. However, the number of studies investigating both the teachers' attitudes towards this issue and the use of teaching strategies based on students' alternative conceptions is very limited.This article aims to present the results obtained from science teachers about their attitudes towards students' alternative conceptions and the use of teaching strategies based on these conceptions.The results may contribute to the planning of in‐service courses.
A content analysis of research published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching from 1985 through 1989
Authors: Horton Phillip B. , McConney Andrew A. , Woods Amanda L. , Barry Kevin , Krout Homer L. , Doyle Barbara K. 
Published: October 2006

AbstractTo determine if actual practice was consistent with commonly recommended research methods and procedures, this study examined 130 studies reported over a 5‐year period in three volumes of the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (JRST). The results were consistent with similar previous analyses (Shaver & Norton, 1980a, 1980b; Wallen & Fraenkel, 1988a) and indicate that appropriate generalizations beyond the confines of the reported studies may be impossible for most (64%) of the JRST studies surveyed. The findings also show that replication studies, which could be employed to offset deficiencies in generalizability, were not commonly encountered (3%) in these 130 reports. In addition, the study results indicate that many researchers (48%) do not properly restrict their conclusions based on the limits imposed by the accessible populations and samples used; nor do they typically provide possible alternative explanations for the outcomes obtained (76%). These findings prompt the following recommendations:1. A greater awareness and use of replication as a check on generalizability should be encouraged by the science education community.2. Clearly defined populations (target and accessible) and fully described samples warrant increased attention as report components from authors, reviewers, and editorial board members of JRST.3. In light of the difficulties inherent in effecting random selection in educational settings, a greater emphasis should be placed on recognizing the limits that the underlying assumptions of inferential statistics place on research conclusions.The results of this study indicate that the methodological quality of published science education research should remain a concern for both practitioners and readers.
Erroneous ideas about respiration: The teacher factor
Authors: Sanders Martie 
Published: October 2006

AbstractRecent research suggests that many South African pupils in their final year of schooling have erroneous ideas about various aspects of respiration (Sanders and Cramer, 1992). This study investigates teachers as a possible source of pupils' errors. The views of 136 biology teachers about respiration and related concepts were elicited by means of an analysis of how teachers marked an essay containing errors commonly found among year‐12 pupils. The teachers' responses suggest that many of them might well have erroneous ideas. These are reviewed in terms of four conceptual areas related to respiration. Finally the implications for teachers are discussed, and suggestions are made about possible ways to address the problem of erroneous ideas among teachers and pupils.
Curriculum reform and choice of science: Consequences for balanced and equitable participation and achievement
Authors: Rennie Léonie J. , Parker Lesley H. 
Published: October 2006

AbstractIn 1988, most schools in Western Australia adopted a Unit Curriculum structure in the first three years of high school, following piloting of the scheme in seven schools in 1987. The goais of the Unit Curriculum are stated to be excellence, equity, and relevance, and one of its key features is the increased flexibility students have in making their subject selection. This article reviews the science enrollment and achievement patterns of males and females studying in the pilot schools in 1987, and for the first three years of the operation of the Unit Curriculum in 1988, 1989, and 1990. The data indicate that lowering the age for subject choice is associated with a reduction in the amount of science studies, especially by females, and with the early manifestation of sex‐stereotyped subject selection. It appears that if early sex stereotyping is to be avoided, then students need to be provided with more structure in their selection of units. This article emphasizes the need for all involved in system‐wide curriculum change to be fully informed of the potential benefits and dangers of curriculum models which allow wide flexibility, especially where curriculum change affects students' “choice point”.
Deductive reasoning, brain maturation, and science concept acquisition: Are they linked?
Authors: Lawson Anton E. 
Published: October 2006

AbstractThe present study tested the alternative hypotheses that the poor performance of the intuitive and transitional students on the concept acquisition tasks employed in the Lawson et al. (1991) study was due either to their failure (a) to use deductive reasoning to test potentially relevant task features, as suggested by Lawson et al. (1991); (b) to identify potentially relevant features; or (c) to derive and test a successful problem‐solving strategy. To test these hypotheses a training session, which consisted of a series of seven concept acquisition tasks, was designed to reveal to students key task features and the deductive reasoning pattern necessary to solve the tasks. The training was individually administered to students (ages 5–14 years). Results revealed that none of the five‐ and six‐year‐olds, approximately half of the seven‐year‐olds, and virtually all of the students eight years and older responded successfully to the training. These results are viewed as contradictory to the hypothesis that the intuitive and transitional students in the Lawson et al. (1991) study lacked the reasoning skills necessary to identify and test potentially relevant task features. Instead, the results support the hypothesis that their poor performance was due to their failure to use hypothetico‐deductive reasoning to derive an effective strategy. Previous research is cited that indicates that the brain's frontal lobes undergo a pronounced growth spurt from about four years of age to about seven years of age. In fact, the performance of normal six‐year‐olds and adults with frontal lobe damage on tasks such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), a task similar in many ways to the present concept acquisition tasks, has been found to be identical. Consequently, the hypothesis is advanced that maturation of the frontal lobes can explain the striking improvement in performance at age seven. A neural network of the role of the frontal lobes in task performance based upon the work of Levine and Prueitt (1989) is presented. The advance in reasoning that presumably results from effective operation of the frontal lobes is seen as a fundamental advance in intellectual development because it enables children to employ an inductive‐deductive reasoning pattern to change their minds when confronted with contradictory evidence regarding features of perceptible objects, a skill necessary for descriptive concept acquisition. It is suggested that a further qualitative advance in intellectual development occurs when an analogous pattern of abductive‐deductive reasoning is applied to hypothetical objects and/or processes to allow for alternative hypothesis testing and theoretical concept acquisition. Apparently this is the reasoning pattern needed to derive an effective problem‐solving strategy to solve the concept acquisition tasks of Lawson et al. (1991) when direct instruction is not provided. Implications for the science classroom are suggested.
Prospective elementary teachers' prior knowledge about light
Authors: Bendall Sharon , Goldberg Fred , Galili Igal 
Published: October 2006

AbstractThis article reports on a study that was designed to describe prospective elementary teachers' prior verbal and diagrammatic knowledge about various aspects of light, seeing, shadows, and mirror images. Data were collected through individual interviews using simple apparatus (light bulb, objects, screen, and plane mirror). Included are some inferences about how students' ideas may have emerged from their interpretations of everyday experiences. The article concludes with a section that provides an example of a conceptual change instructional strategy that was based on the research results reported here.
Figuring out a scientific understanding
Authors: Sutton Clive 
Published: October 2006

AbstractThis article attempts to place analogy and metaphor within the wider context of all figurative language, and to trace the relationship between that kind of expression and the supposedly literal and direct accounts of nature that scientists have built up.I explore the functions of figures of speech in the development of new scientific ideas, and trace how they fade or die as each area of scientific knowledge matures. What we then take to be the literal words of scientific description are in effect the remnants of old figures of speech that have grown so familiar that their earlier metaphorical quality is easily overlooked. The conventional separation of figurative and literal cannot be sustained, and a new understanding of their relationship is needed.The practical implications of this analysis are to do with how we can reactivate the dormant metaphors in ordinary scientific language, so that learners may hear again the human voice of scientists who developed the ways of talking we now take for granted. To reactivate the system of thought behind any established way of talking, we must be able to get the learners to understand that language works as a medium of interpretation and persuasion, and not simply a system of descriptive labeling. These two views of language are compared and contrasted.
Neural principles of memory and a neural theory of analogical insight
Authors: Lawson David I. , Lawson Anton E. 
Published: October 2006

AbstractGrossberg's principles of neural modeling are reviewed and extended to provide a neural level theory to explain how analogies greatly increase the rate of learning and can, in fact, make learning and retention possible. In terms of memory, the key point is that the mind is able to recognize and recall when it is able to match sensory input from new objects, events, or situations with past memory records of “similar” objects, events, or situations. When a match occurs, an adaptive resonance is set up in which the synaptic strengths of neurons are increased; thus a long term record of the new input is formed in memory. Systems of neurons called outstars and instars are presumably the underlying units that enable this to occur. Analogies can greatly facilitate learning and retention because they activate the outstars (i.e., the cells that are sampling the to‐be‐learned pattern) and cause the neural activity to grow exponentially by forming feedback loops. This increased activity insures the boost in synaptic strengths of neurons, thus causing storage and retention in long‐term memory (i.e., learning).
Physics students' epistemologies and views about knowing and learning
Authors: Roth Wolff‐Michael , Roychoudhury Anita 
Published: October 2006

AbstractClassrooms are complex environments in which curriculum, students, and teachers interact. In recent years a number of studies have investigated the effect of teachers' epistemologies on the classroom environment, yet little is known about students' epistemologies and how these interact with those of teachers. The purpose of this study was to document students' epistemologies and their concurrent views about knowing and learning. Using a written essay, short‐answer responses to statements, a preferred classroom environment inventory, and interviews, students' views on scientific knowledge and their own knowing and learning were collected from 42 students in three sections of an introductory physics course. Our rather broad, qualitative inquiry provides a dynamic view of students' understanding of knowing and learning in high school physics. Our analyses reveal a spectrum of epistemological commitments commensurable with positions from objectivism to relativism, most of them with experientialist coloring. Even within individuals, these commitments could be at once commensurable and incommensurable with the same epistemological position. We also find rather significant inter‐ and intra‐individual differences with respect to the consequences of a specific epistemological stance to learning, the learning strategies employed, and the learning environment preferred. Students' views on knowing and learning in physics are presented in the form of an emergent theory. The findings are discussed in terms of their application to classroom environments.
Construction and validation of a computer‐based diagnostic module on average velocity
Authors: Andaloro G. , Bellomonte L. , Lupo L. , Sperandeo‐Mineo R. M. 
Published: October 2006

AbstractThis article describes the process of building a computer‐based diagnostic module concerning the understanding of the average velocity concept. The first step consists of the production of a student model that takes into account student errors and reasoning paths. The computer module formulates its diagnosis by leading users along different patterns foreseen according to the hypothesized student model. Results are reported concerning a correlation analysis between automatic and human diagnoses.
The effect of levels of cooperation within physical science laboratory groups on physical science achievement
Authors: Chang Huey‐Por , Lederman Norman G. 
Published: October 2006

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the levels of group cooperation on students' achievement during a series of physical science laboratory activities. Six intact seventh‐grade physical science classes taught by two teachers, with each teacher instructing three classes, were selected from two middle schools. For each teacher, one of the classes was taught with a traditional approach (no cooperative goal structure). The other two classes were assigned to a cooperative goal structure (role assignment and nonrole assignment). For the role assignment class, each student was assigned a specific role, but students in both traditional and nonrole assignment classes were not assigned roles. The Classroom Observation Instrument in Science Laboratory Activity (COISLA), which includes investigative skills (i.e., managing, manipulating, observing, reading, writing, and reporting); social skills (i.e., discussing, encouraging) and nonlearning behaviors (i.e., waiting, off‐task), was used to measure the levels of group cooperation. The grades on lab reports and lab quizzes of students who were taught by the same teacher were compared to assess the effects of the different learning conditions. No significant differences on the students' final achievement were found with respect to the three instructional approaches followed by each teacher. The teacher effect was more significant than either instructional approach on managing, manipulating, observing, reading, and writing behaviors. No significant teacher effect was found for the other behaviors. Only one treatment effect was significant, writing behavior. Overall, the teacher effect was more influential than instructional approach on students' behaviors. In teacher A's classes, reading behavior predicted 21% of students' achievement. However, no significant correlations existed between the 10 collaborative behaviors and students' achievement in teacher B's classes.
Literacy learning in secondary school science classrooms: A cross‐case analysis of three qualitative studies
Authors: Dillon Deborah R. , O'Brien David G. , Moje Elizabeth B. , Stewart Roger A. 
Published: October 2006

AbstractThe purpose of this cross‐case analysis is to illustrate how and why literacy was incorporated into science teaching and learning in three secondary classrooms. Research questions guiding the analysis include: (a) How were literacy events shaped by the teachers' philosophies about teaching science content and teaching students? and (b) How was literacy (reading, writing, and oral language) structured by the teachers and manifested in science lessons? The methodology of ethnography and the theoretical framework of symbolic interactionism were employed in the three studies on which the cross‐case analysis was based. The researchers assumed the role of participant observers, collecting data over the period of 1 year in each of the three classrooms. Data, in the form of fieldnotes, interviews, and artifacts, were collected. In each study, data were analyzed using the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to determine patterns in the teachers' beliefs about learning and how these influenced their choice of literacy activities. The cross‐case analysis was conducted to determine patterns across the three teachers and their classrooms. The findings from this analysis are used to compare how the teachers' philosophies of teaching science and their beliefs about how students learn influenced their use of literacy practices during lessons. Specifically, each teacher's use of literacy activities varied based on his or her beliefs about teaching science concepts. Furthermore, reading, writing, and oral language were important vehicles to learning science concepts within daily classroom activities in the three classrooms.
Verbal and nonverbal behavior of ability‐grouped dyads
Authors: Jones M. Gail , Carter Glenda 
Published: October 2006

AbstractIn this study we describe the social interactions of ability‐grouped dyads as they constructed knowledge of balance concepts to elucidate the relationship between interactions and conceptual growth. The verbal and nonverbal behaviors of 30 fifth‐grade students were recorded as they completed three activities related to balance. These student interactions were examined within a framework of social cognition. For each dyad, characteristics of ability‐grouped dyads were identified. Results revealed that high‐achieving students effectively used prior experiences, maintained focus on the learning task, and were able to manipulate the equipment effectively to construct knowledge. Low‐achieving students exhibited off‐task behavior, lacked a metacognitive framework for organizing the learning tasks, centered on irrelevant features of the equipment, and were unable to use language effectively to mediate learning. Within low‐high student dyads, high‐achieving students typically modeled thinking processes and strategies for manipulating equipment. In addition, they focused the low‐achieving students on the components of the tasks while verbally monitoring their progress, thus enabling low students to identify the critical features necessary for concept construction. These results highlighted the differences that students have in the use of language and tools. Low students' inefficient use of tools has implications for the ways science teachers structure lessons and group students for laboratory work.
High school students presenting science: An interactional sociolinguistic analysis
Authors: Bleicher Robert 
Published: October 2006

AbstractPresenting science is an authentic activity of practicing scientists. Thus, effective communication of science is an important skill to nurture in high school students who are learning science. This study examines strategies employed by high school students as they make science presentations; it assesses students' conceptual understandings of particular science topics through their presentations and investigates gender differences. Data are derived from science presentation given by eight high school students, three females and five males who attended a summer science program. Data sources included videotaped presentations, ethnographic fieldnotes, interviews with presenters and members of the audience, and presenter notes and overheads. Presentations were transcribed and submitted to discourse analysis from an interactional sociolinguistic perspective. This article focuses on the methodology employed and how it helps inform the above research questions. The author argues that use of this methodology leads to findings that inform important social‐communicative issues in the learning of science. Practical advice for teaching students to present science, implications for use of presentations to assess conceptual learning, and indications of some possible gender differences are discussed.