Purpose: Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate Swedish technology teachers’ attitudes toward their subject, and how these attitudes may be related to background variables.
Sample: Technology teachers in Swedish compulsory schools (n = 1153) responded to a questionnaire about teachers’ attitudes, experiences, and background.
Methods: Exploratory factor analysis was used to inwvestigate attitude dimensions of the questionnaire. Groupings of teachers based on attitudes were identified through cluster analysis, and multinomial logistic regression was performed to investigate the role of teachers’ background variables as predictors for cluster belonging.
Results: Four attitudinal dimensions were identified in the questionnaire, corresponding to distinct components of attitudes. Three teacher clusters were identified among the respondents characterized by positive, negative, and mixed attitudes toward the subject of technology and its teaching, respectively. The most influential predictors of cluster membership were to be qualified for teaching technology, having participated in in-service-training, teaching at a school with a proper overall teaching plan for the subject of technology and teaching at a school with a defined number of teaching hours for the subject.
Conclusions: The results suggest that efforts to increase technology teachers’ qualifications and establishing a fixed number of teaching hours and an overall teaching plan for the subject of technology may yield more positive attitudes among teachers toward technology teaching. In turn, this could improve the status of the subject as well as students’ learning. 相似文献
All plans for this integrated training program are designed to provide training normally encompassed by the traditional two‐stage programm.
The integrated training program includes:
- studies in the areas of education and social science;
- studies in two major subjects which are later to be taught at school;
- practical studies and activities.
The new model leads to the following degrees:
- nine semesters of study for a Certificate of Qualification for primary and lower‐level secondary school;
- eleven semesters for a Certificate of Qualification for higher‐level secon dary school and the education of exceptional children.
Theoretic training in major subject areas and related didactic training as well as education and social studies take place chiefly in the form of projects. A basic assumption is that interdisciplinary projects which are practice‐ and problemoriented permit a highly desirable integration of theory and practice on the whole.
In the project, contact teachers are an essential link between field practice at school and academic training at the university. Contact teachers are under contact to the university for an extended period of time (generally three years). In place of remunation, their teaching loads are reduced by ten hours per week.
In 1978/79 the project will be put to the test as the first generation of students prepares for State Board Examinations. 相似文献
Purpose: This article aims to delineate the influence of textbooks on teachers’ selection and use of representations when teaching chemical bonding models and to show how this might cause students’ difficulties understanding.
Sample: Ten chemistry teachers from seven upper secondary schools located in Central Sweden volunteered to participate in this study.
Design and methods: Data from multiple sources were collected and analysed, including interviews with the 10 upper secondary school teachers, the teachers’ lesson plans, and the contents of the textbooks used by the teachers.
Results: The results revealed strong coherence between how chemical bonding models are presented in textbooks and by teachers, and thus depict that textbooks influence teachers’ selection and use of representations for their lessons. As discussed in the literature review, several of the selected representations were associated with alternative conceptions of, and difficulties understanding, chemical bonding among students.
Conclusions: The study highlights the need for filling the gap between research and teaching practices, focusing particularly on how representations of chemical bonding can lead to students’ difficulties understanding. The gap may be filled by developing teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge regarding chemical bonding and scientific models in general. 相似文献
Purpose To investigate teachers’ and principals’ reflections on the competition in schools.
Sample Seventeen secondary school teachers and three principals from districts in the south-western part of Sweden participated in the study. All teachers had long experience of the competition, and their classes had reached at least the regional finals during the last year.
Design and methods Semi-structured interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and then analysed using content analysis. Focus was put on why the teachers decided to participate, how the teachers integrated the competition in their education and roles of the principals.
Results There were various reasons for participating in the competition. Teachers reported development of twenty-first-century skills such as better cooperation between the students. They also noticed an increased interest in science and technology and how learning in the subjects was stimulated. Furthermore, the teachers found participation in the competition to be positive for them too. They integrated the competition in ordinary education and gained teaching ideas as well as found connections to the curriculum. Participating in the competition seemed to be a tradition in most of the schools. The principals’ role was to facilitate the organisation around the competition and to provide social support.
Conclusions Participation in a school competition was considered as an instructional strategy with several positive outcomes. Use of this strategy can be supported by earlier suggestions to use pedagogies that are opposite to transmissive methods, enhancing students’ development of important skills for the future. 相似文献
Purpose: Aiming to understand the enrolment dynamics, this study analyses sample-based data from Finland’s National Assessment in Science to determine whether pedagogical approaches influence student intention to enrol in upper secondary school physics courses.
Sample: This study examined a clustered sample of 2949 Finnish students in the final year of comprehensive school (15–16 years old).
Methods: Through explorative factor analysis, we extracted several variables that were expected to influence student intention to enrol in physics courses. We applied partial correlation to determine the underlying interdependencies of the variables.
Results: The analysis revealed that the main predictor of enrolment in upper secondary school physics courses is whether students feel that physics is important. Although statistically significant, partial correlations between variables were rather small. However, the analysis of partial correlations revealed that pedagogical practices influence inquiry and attitudinal factors. Pedagogical practices that emphasise science experimentation and the social construction of knowledge had the strongest influence.
Conclusions: The research implies that to increase student enrolment in physics courses, the way students interpret the subject’s importance needs to be addressed, which can be done by the pedagogical practices of discussion, teacher demonstrations, and practical work. 相似文献
Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore the factors affecting digital reading literacy among upper-elementary school students.
Method: A 3-stage stratified cluster sampling was implemented that resulted in a sample of 592 upper-elementary students from 29 classes in 7 schools. Self-Regulated Learning Strategies Assessment (S-RLSA), Digital Reading Literacy Assessment (DRLA), and student reports of their parents’ education backgrounds were used to collect data on the outcome and predictor variables. Interpretation of these data involved two highly regarded statistical techniques. First, structural equation modeling was used to explore relationships amongst the constructs. Second, multi-group invariance (MI) analyses were used to assess the influence of parental education and self-regulated learning strategies on students’ digital reading literacy.
Results: Enriching students’ family learning resources and strengthening their self-regulated learning abilities could have very important influences on promoting upper-elementary school students' digital reading literacy -webpage information retrieval, reading and communication abilities.
Conclusions: This study also provides information on how teachers can address student resources to improve digital reading literacy and self-regulated strategies. 相似文献
Purpose: The study aims to understand how seventh grade students perceive a collaborative web-based science project in light of Wolff’s design categories. The goal of the project is to develop their technological and collaborative skills, to educate them about technology integration practices, and to provide an optimum collaborative, PBL experience.
Sample: Seventh grade students aged 12–14 (n = 15) were selected from a rural K–12 school in Turkey through purposeful sampling.
Design and methods: The current study applied proactive action research since it focused on utilizing a new way to enhance students’ technological and collaborative skills and to demonstrate technology integration into science coursework. Data were collected qualitatively through interviews, observation forms, forum archives, and website evaluation rubrics.
Results: The results found virtual spaces such as online tutorials, forums, and collaborative and communicative tools to be beneficial for collaborative PBL. The study supported Wolff’s design features for a collaborative PBL environment, applying features appropriate for a rural K–12 school setting and creating a digitally-enriched environment. As the forum could not be used as effectively as expected because of school limitations, more flexible spaces independent of time and space were needed.
Conclusions: This study’s interdisciplinary, collaborative PBL was efficient in enhancing students’ advanced technological and collaborative skills, as well as exposing them to practices for integrating technology into science. The study applied design features for a collaborative PBL environment with certain revisions. 相似文献
These trends are having important implications for the scope of practical training and its relationship to other parts of the studies. Traditional forms of practical training that had developed at pedagogical academies are being discontinued but the new ones are not yet firmly established.
The existing forms of practical training of student teachers are briefly described (exercises in general professional courses, exercises in classroom observation, teaching attempts and block practice). In addition, the role of teachers of special didactics and the role of practice teachers is analysed.
The pragmatic character of practical training has to be overcome on the basis of systematic attempts to confront students’ subjective theories on teaching and learning, based on experience, with scientific theories throughout the process of their training.
An important prerequisite for the necessary integration of different components of study and especially of theory and practice is cooperation between university teachers of academic, general professional subjects and special didactics. How do we achieve such a cooperation and overcome the negative attitude of teachers of academic subjects toward professional and practical training of students? This remains one of the open problems in the reform of teacher training in Slovenia. 相似文献
Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of using case-based learning instruction to increase pre-service primary teachers’ chemistry motivation and improve their attitudes toward chemistry as a school subject.
Sample: The subjects of this study consisted of 51 (20 female, 31 male) freshman primary pre-service teachers from an urban university in Turkey. The mean age of the primary pre-service teachers was 21.
Design and methods: One group pre-test and post-test design was used. A chemistry motivation questionnaire and chemistry attitude scale were used for data collection. For the data analysis, two-way repeated measures of ANOVA and repeated measures MANOVA were conducted.
Results: The results indicated that the mean of the attitude score after the treatment was significantly greater than the mean of the attitude before the treatment. The results also demonstrated that there is no significant difference between females and males. According to the results of the study, there is no significant difference between primary pre-service teachers’ chemistry motivation. However, some chemistry motivation constructs mean scores are greater after the treatment.
Conclusions: In sum, it could be stated that case-based learning is helpful for the development of students’ chemistry motivation and attitudes toward chemistry. 相似文献
Ideological concepts divide the institutions of both kinds into those that train teachers for religious and non‐religious nursery schools and elementary schools.
The teacher training institutions in Israel (together with the whole educational system) have been immersed, during recent years, in a process of reform which reflects the changes that Israeli society has undergone since the establishment of the State. 相似文献
Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore students’ perception of teachers’ feedback given on their texts in two genres, and to suggest how writing training and feedback-giving could become more efficient.
Sample: In this study were included 44 degree project students in biology and molecular biology, and 21 supervising teachers at a Swedish university.
Design and methods: The study concerned students’ writing about their degree projects in two genres: scientific writing and popular science writing. The data consisted of documented teacher feedback on the students’ popular science texts. It also included students’ and teachers’ answers to questionnaires about writing and feedback. All data were collected during the spring of 2012. Teachers’ feedback, actual and recalled – by students and teachers, respectively – was analysed and compared using the so-called Canons of rhetoric.
Results: While the teachers recalled the given feedback as mainly positive, most students recalled only negative feedback. According to the teachers, suggested improvements concerned firstly the content, and secondly the structure of the text. In contrast, the students mentioned language style first, followed by content.
Conclusions: The disagreement between students and teachers regarding how and what feedback was given on the students texts confirm the need of improved strategies for writing training and feedback-giving in science education. We suggest that the rhetorical meta-language might play a crucial role in overcoming the difficulties observed in this study. We also discuss how training of writing skills may contribute to students’ understanding of their subject matter. 相似文献
By mid-1986, there were 12 special schools catering for some 2,000 pupils; intellectually disabled, educationally subnormal, hearing impaired, visually handicapped, cerebral palsied and multiple handicapped. All these schools are run by Voluntary Associations with Government support in terms of funds, buildings and some teachers.
However, an analysis of prevalence figures indicates a possible shortfall in the numbers of disabled children actually attending special schools, and an over-concentration of these schools in one part of Singapore which might deter some parents from sending their children to the appropriate special school.
One major improvement in the quality of Special Education has been the systematic training (since 1984) of the unqualified Association teachers at the Institute of Education on the Certificate in Special Education Programme.
However, there would still seem to be a need for more therapists and para-professionals to support the services offered in the special schools. 相似文献
What this recruitment structure does not allow for is that form teachers may be affected by a number of ‘sources of influence’, the effects of which do not coincide with this objective.
The aim of this paper is to build up a picture of the school as an ‘open ended’ interrelating totality, within which form teachers confront the demand for a ‘balanced intake’ alongside a number of other, potentially conflicting factors. 相似文献
Purpose: The study aims to find out primary school students’ perceptions of microorganisms and to analyze whether theoretical or practical teaching interventions produce different levels in student’s learning about this topic.
Sample: The sample consisted of 199 primary students in 2nd (aged 7–8) and 6th (11–12) grades from two public schools in Albacete (Spain).
Design and method: This study uses a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire to evaluate the knowledge of students on the issue of microorganisms. We compare differences by age and two teaching–learning intervention methodologies: theoretical and practical.
Results: Results from the pre-test showed a poor understanding and several misconceptions. Children have a limited and negative view of microorganisms, mainly derived from non-formal learning. Both types of intervention provided an improvement in knowledge, but closed questions did not reveal clear statistically significant differences between methods. Open questions showed how the scientific use of the language and quality of verbalization is much better in the groups that received a practical intervention.
Conclusion: The findings can be a starting point for curriculum planners and for teachers interested in engaging students in science learning. 相似文献