The Relationship between Students’ Views of the Nature of Science and their Views of the Nature of Scientific Measurement     

Andy Buffler  Bashirah Ibrahim 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(9):1137-1156

The present study explores the relationship between students’ views of the nature of science (NOS) and their views of the nature of scientific measurement. A questionnaire with two‐tier diagnostic multiple‐choice items on both the NOS and measurement was administered to 179 first‐year physics students with diverse school experiences. Students’ views on the NOS were classified into four NOS ‘profiles’, and views on measurement were classified according to either the point or set paradigms. The findings show that students with a NOS profile dominated by a belief that the laws of nature are to be discovered by scientists are more likely to have a view of the nature of scientific measurement characterised by a belief in ‘true’ values. On the other hand, students who believe that scientific theories are inventions of scientists, constructed from observations that are then validated through further experimentation, are more likely to have a view of the nature of scientific measurement that is underpinned by the uncertain nature of scientific evidence. The implications for teaching scientific measurement at tertiary level are discussed.  相似文献   

Education for national identity: Arab schools principals and teachers dilemmas and coping strategies     

Khalid Arar  Fadia Ibrahim 《教育政策杂志》2013,28(6):681-693

Abstract

This article discusses strategies used by Arab principals and teachers in Israel to cope with dilemmas involved in education for national identity stemming from conflict between two national narratives. While the Israeli Ministry of Education expects the Arab education system to educate students according to the Jewish State’s values, Palestinian Arab society expects its schools to educate its children according to Palestinian Arab national-cultural values. A qualitative research employed a semi-structured interview to elicit views on this issue from 7 principals and 14 teachers in the Arab education system in Israel. The findings indicate a conflictual reality. Interviewees expressed fear, humiliation and affront when required to obey Ministry of Education instructions in contradiction to attitudes prevalent in their society. They therefore developed coping strategies to foster students’ national identity without disrupting the necessary balance; primarily the construction of a covert learning program through manipulations in the official overt learning program. This study contributes to our understanding of minority education in a reality of conflict between the state and its national minority.  相似文献   

Role of Omani parents: fostering emergent literacy skills     

Ibrahim A. Al-Qaryouti  Hashem A. Kilani 《Education 3-13》2013,41(3):336-348

The purpose of this study is to document the significance of four practices employed by parents that contribute to such development. Those practices encompassed the availability of materials, activities at home, parent attitude and visits to their child's class. Subjects consisted of 314 male and female parents of kindergarten children in the Sultanate of Oman. The researchers developed a 25-item questionnaire intended to measure the degree of parent involvement in their children's development at acceptable levels of validity and reliability. Results indicated that the role of parents ranged from medium to high on all practice domains of the tool. There were no significant differences for parents reading and writing practices, education levels, income levels, gender of children and siblings order. It is suggested that additional investigation in rural areas and other locales districts with different socially and economical levels should be conducted. In addition, the role of technology at homes and kindergartens such as child's learning style, parent's knowledge of child development and the availability of related outside resources available to families should be considered.  相似文献   

Application of automated image analysis to the identification and extraction of recyclable plastic bottles     

Edgar Scavino  Dzuraidah Abdul Wahab  Aini Hussain  Hassan Basri  Mohd Marzuki Mustafa 《浙江大学学报(A卷英文版)》2009,10(6):794-799

An experimental machine vision apparatus was used to identify and extract recyclable plastic bottles out of a conveyor belt. Color images were taken with a commercially available Webcam, and the recognition was performed by our homemade software, based on the shape and dimensions of object images. The software was able to manage multiple bottles in a single image and was additionally extended to cases involving touching bottles. The identification was fulfilled by comparing the set of measured features with an existing database and meanwhile integrating various recognition techniques such as minimum distance in the feature space, self-organized maps, and neural networks. The recognition system was tested on a set of 50 different bottles and provided so far an accuracy of about 97% on bottle identification. The extraction of the bottles was performed by means of a pneumatic arm, which was activated according to the plastic type; polyethylene-terephthalate （PET） bottles were left on the conveyor belt, while non-PET bottles were extracted. The software was designed to provide the best compromise between reliability and speed for real-time applications in view of the commercialization of the system at existing recycling plants.  相似文献   

Chlorella vulgaris triggers apoptosis in hepatocarcinogenesis-induced rats     

Emey Suhana Mohd Azamai  Suhaniza Sulaiman  Shafina Hanim Mohd Habib  Mee Lee Looi  Srijit Das  Nor Aini Abdul Hamid  Wan Zurinah Wan Ngah  Yasmin Anum Mohd Yusof 《Journal of Zhejiang University. Science. B》2009,10(1):14-21

Chlorella vulgaris (CV) has been reported to have antioxidant and anticancer properties. We evaluated the effect of CV on apoptotic regulator protein expression in liver cancer-induced rats. Male Wistar rats (200∼250 g) were divided into eight groups: control group (normal diet), CDE group (choline deficient diet supplemented with ethionine in drinking water to induce hepatocarcinogenesis), CV groups with three different doses of CV (50, 150, and 300 mg/kg body weight), and CDE groups treated with different doses of CV (50, 150, and 300 mg/kg body weight). Rats were sacrificed at various weeks and liver tissues were embedded in paraffin blocks for immunohistochemistry studies. CV, at increasing doses, decreased the expression of anti-apoptotic protein, Bcl-2, but increased the expression of pro-apoptotic protein, caspase 8, in CDE rats, which was correlated with decreased hepatoctyes proliferation and increased apoptosis as determined by bromodeoxy-uridine (BrdU) labeling and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL) assay, respectively. Our study shows that CV has definite chemopreventive effect by inducing apoptosis via decreasing the expression of Bcl-2 and increasing the expression of caspase 8 in hepatocarcinogenesis-induced rats. Project supported by Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, UKM Medical Center, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and the Malaysian Ministry of Science and Technological Innovation (MOSTI)  相似文献   

Analysing a cycling grand tour: Can we monitor fatigue with intensity or load ratios?     

Dajo Sanders  Mathieu Heijboer  Matthijs K. C. Hesselink  Tony Myers  Ibrahim Akubat 《Journal of sports sciences》2018,36(12):1385-1391

This study evaluated the changes in ratios of different intensity (rating of perceived exertion; RPE, heart rate; HR, power output; PO) and load measures (session-RPE; sRPE, individualized TRIMP; iTRIMP, Training Stress Score?; TSS) in professional cyclists. RPE, PO and HR data was collected from twelve professional cyclists (VO_2max 75 ± 6 ml?min?kg^?1) during a two-week baseline training period and during two cycling Grand Tours. Subjective:objective intensity (RPE:HR, RPE:PO) and load (sRPE:iTRIMP, sRPE:TSS) ratios and external:internal intensity (PO:HR) and load (TSS:iTRIMP) ratios were calculated for every session. Moderate to large increases in the RPE:HR, RPE:PO and sRPE:TSS ratios (d = 0.79–1.79) and small increases in the PO:HR and sRPE:iTRIMP ratio (d = 0.21–0.41) were observed during Grand Tours compared to baseline training data. Differences in the TSS:iTRIMP ratio were trivial to small (d = 0.03–0.27). Small to moderate week-to-week changes (d = 0.21–0.63) in the PO:HR, RPE:PO, RPE:HR, TSS:iTRIMP, sRPE:iTRIMP and sRPE:TSS were observed during the Grand Tour. Concluding, this study shows the value of using ratios of intensity and load measures in monitoring cyclists. Increases in ratios could reflect progressive fatigue that is not readily detected by changes in solitary intensity/load measures.  相似文献   

Factors affecting Turkish students＇ achievement in mathematics     

Ibrahim Demir Serpil Klllc Ozer Depren 《美中教育评论》2009,6(6):47-52,80

Following past researches, student background, learning strategies, self-related cognitions in mathematics and school climate variables were important for achievement. The purpose of this study was to identify a number of factors that represent the relationship among sets of interrelated variables using principal component factor analysis and examine the contribution of each factor to the explanation of the variance in the students＇ mathematics score using multiple regression analysis. The sample was prepared from students who participated in Programme for International Student Assessment （PISA） in Turkey. These data consisted of 3765 15 year-old Turkish students in 158 schools. The results showed that four factors under study totally accounted for approximately 34 percent of the variance in mathematics achievement. All of the factors had statistically significant effects on the achievement. The findings are very important for Turkish education system because the fact that changing school climate and improving the learning strategies are much easier to achieve than changing background factors affecting students＇ performance.  相似文献   

Effectiveness of the selected techniques in enhancing the achievement in science among the children with learning disabilities： Sharing experiences     

Mohd. Sahandri Gani Hamzah Vijayaletchumy a/p Subramamam Saifuddin Kumar Abdullah 《美中教育评论》2009,6(9):67-84

In national perception, education is essentially for all. This is fundamental to all-round development, material and spiritual. It refines sensitivities and perceptions that contribute to national cohesion, a scientific temper and independence of mind and spirit--thus furthering the goals of socialism secularism and democracy enshrined in our constitution. The objective of the study focuses on achievement of children with learning disability in science. There are 5 null hypothesis tested in this research. The sample used in this study includes 35 children with learning disabilities in experimental group and 42 children with learning disabilities in control group. The different views taken on special education have ignited spark of controversies over segregating some children from the mainstream and providing them with extra opportunities. There are arguments for and against both special education and integrated education. Special education means the specifically designed instruction that meets the unusual needs of special children. It requires special materials, teaching, techniques, equipment and facilities. The design was an experimental research pre and post-test equivalent group. The research shows that there is no significant difference in all learning objective such as knowledge, comprehension and skill between control group and experimental group in the pre-test. This two sample groups also did not show any significant difference in the pre-test irrespective of gender, educational qualification of the teacher, years of experience of the teacher, parents＇ education, parents＇ profession, parents＇ income, type of management and type of school. On the other hand, for the post-test all the characteristics show that there are significant differences. This shows that there are effects on the treatment group in learning objective. Furthermore the experimental group showed significantly higher gain score than the control group with regard to the learning objective which comprises of knowledge, comprehension, application and skill.  相似文献   

The effect of manufacturing strategy on organizational performance     

Raduan Che Rose  Naresh Kumar  Hazril Izwar Ibrahim 《Performance Improvement》2008,47(1):18-25

The research reported in this article investigated the effect of manufacturing strategy on organizational performance in the Malaysian electrical and electronic sector. It was revealed that a cost‐based strategy greatly affected the performance of organizations participating in this study. This result implied that a cost‐based strategy is still a dominant concern for manufacturing firms. The information gathered through this study is useful for strategy formulation and for understanding how a strategy can lead to improved organizational performance in general.  相似文献   

Plasma proteinase inhibitory activity in ectopic and molar pregnancy     

Maya Roche  V. P. Arun Kumar  S. M. Ibrahim  K. Nalini 《Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB》2008,23(4):352-355

Antitryptic, antichymotryptic and alpha 2- macroglobulin activities were measured in sera of normal nonpregnant and normal pregnant women and women with tubal ectopic pregnancy and molar pregnancies in the first 5 to 7 weeks of pregnancy calculated from the last menstrual period. While alpha 2-macroglobulin decreased in early normal pregnancy compared to nonpregnant state (p<0.001), in ectopic and molar pregnancies there was an increase in alpha 2- macroglobulin activity (p < 0.001), as compared to nonpregnant and normal pregnant women. Antitryptic activity did not increase in normal and ectopic pregnancy, however was increased in molar pregnancy (p < 0.01). Antichymotryptic activities did not show a change either in normal pregnancy or in cases of ectopic and molar pregnancy. Drop in alpha 2- macroglobulin activity to near normal levels in ectopic, 6 weeks post surgery, correlated well with the decrease in β-hCG. However, in molar pregnancy, alpha 2- macroglobulin remained elevated even when the β-hCG levels in serum returned to zero 10 weeks after surgery. The studies suggest a major role for circulating proteinase inhibitors especially alpha 2-macroglobulin in regulating proteinase activity in normal, ectopic and molar pregnancy.  相似文献