Learning opportunities from group discussions: warrants become the objects of debate     

Keith Weber  Carolyn Maher  Arthur Powell  Hollylynne Stohl Lee 《Educational Studies in Mathematics》2008,68(3):247-261

In the mathematics education literature, there is currently a debate about the mechanisms by which group discussion can contribute to mathematical learning and under what conditions this learning is likely to occur. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by illustrating three learning opportunities that group discussions can create. In analyzing a videotaped episode of eight middle school students discussing a statistical problem, we observed that these students frequently challenged the arguments that their colleagues presented. These challenges invited students to be explicit about what mathematical principles, or warrants, they were implicitly using as a basis for their mathematical claims, in some cases recognize the modes of reasoning they were using were invalid and reject these modes of reasoning, and in other cases, attempt to provide deductive support to justify why their modes of reasoning were appropriate. We then describe what social and environmental conditions allowed the discussion analyzed in this paper to occur.

Keith WeberEmail:

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Comparison of the General Ability Measure for Adults and the Kaufman Adolescent and Adult Intelligence Test with college students     

Kerry S. Lassiter  T. Darin Matthews  Nancy L. Bell  Carrie M. Maher 《Psychology in the schools》2002,39(5):497-506

Ninety‐four college students were administered the GAMA and KAIT. GAMA IQs were significantly and moderately correlated with KAIT Fluid, Crystallized and Composite IQs, supporting the convergent validity of this instrument. Although significant correlations between measures emerged and nonsignificant differences were found between mean scores across these instruments, GAMA IQ scores did not accurately predict KAIT Composite IQ scores when GAMA IQ scores were compared to KAIT Composite IQs. Similarly, when the sample was divided into two groups by ability level, GAMA IQs accurately estimated the intelligence for individuals of Average and Below Average intelligence, but underestimated the KAIT Composite IQ scores by 4 points for the Above Average group. Implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided. © 2002, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.  相似文献   

Development,validation, and factorial comparison of the McGill Self-Efficacy of Learners For Inquiry Engagement (McSELFIE) survey in natural science disciplines     

Ahmed Ibrahim  Mark W. Aulls  Bruce M. Shore 《International Journal of Science Education》2016,38(16):2450-2476

Sociocognitive theory [Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall; Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social cognitive theory. American Psychologist, 44, 1175–1184. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.44.9.1175; Bandura, A. (1991). Social cognitive theory of self-regulation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 248–287. doi:10.1016/0749-5978(91)90022-L] accords high importance to the mechanisms of human agency and how they are exercised through self-efficacy. In this paper, we developed and validated the McGill Self-Efficacy For Inquiry Engagement (McSELFIE) instrument with undergraduate students in natural science disciplines. We defined inquiry engagement as carrying out the practices of science (POS) that are supported by students’ personality characteristics (SPCs) and that result in achieving inquiry-learning outcomes (ILOs). Based on these theoretical perspectives, the McSELFIE is a 60-item, learner-focused survey that addresses three components that are theoretically important for engaging in scientific inquiry: (a) SPCs, (b) ILOs, and (c) POS. Evidence for construct and content validity were obtained by using experts’ judgments and confirmatory factor analysis with a sample of 110 undergraduate students enrolled in science disciplines. Internal consistency of the factors and instrument was also examined. The McSELFIE instrument is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring science undergraduate students’ self-efficacy for inquiry engagement. Matched pairs analyses were conducted among the instruments’ factors. Students reported the highest self-efficacy for openness, applying knowledge, and carrying out investigations. Students reported the lowest self-efficacy for extraversion, understanding metacognitive knowledge, and planning investigations. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.  相似文献   

Professional development for rural and remote teachers using video conferencing     

Damian Maher  Anne Prescott 《Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education》2017,45(5):520-538

Teachers in rural and remote schools face many challenges including those relating to distance, isolation and lack of professional development opportunities. This article examines a project where mathematics and science teachers were provided with professional development opportunities via video conferencing to help them use syllabus documents to develop their teaching programs. The study is qualitative and draws on teacher conversations and surveys using a community of inquiry theoretical framework to analyse the data. The results demonstrate that teacher professional development via video conferencing has both strengths and weaknesses but can support teachers through collaboration to develop their expertise in writing teaching programs.  相似文献   

Brain type natriuretic peptide (BNP)—A marker of new millennium in diagnosis of congestive heart failure   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Arun Raizada  Suman Bhandari  Muzaiyan Ahmed Khan  Harsh Vardhan Singh  Sherin Thomas  Vikram Sarabhai  Neelima Singh  Naresh Trehan 《Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB》2007,22(1):4-9

The burden of disease in patients with congestive heart failure is high. The future of BNP looks promising as it may be a better diagnostic tool for the diagnosis of CHF in developing countries in new millennium. Natriuretic peptide hormones, a family of vasoactive peptides with many favourable physiological properties, have emerged as important contenders for development of diagnostic tools and therapeutic agents in cardiovascular disease. Measurement of B-type natriuretic peptide has become as an easy-to-perform bedside test. The clinical and diagnostic significance of the measurement of plasma Nt-proBNP in the diseases of the cardiovascular system with particular emphasis on the assessment of patients with heart failure and their effects on predicting survival rate. The plasma levels of Nt-proBrain Natriuretic peptide responds more vigorously after myocardial infarction than those of other natriuretic peptides. This article is an attempt to give a short overview on the utility of BNP-blood levels for the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure  相似文献   

The faculty perspective on holistic and systems thinking in American and Australian mechanical engineering programmes     

N. N. Kellam  M. A. Maher  W. H. Peters 《European Journal of Engineering Education》2008,33(1):45-57

This research effort examined current mechanical engineering educational programmes in America and Australia to determine the degree of holistic, systems thinking of each programme. Faculty from ten American universities and ten Australian universities participated in online surveys and interviews. Resulting data analysis and interpretation suggest that holistic, systems thinking is present in both American and Australian engineering educational programmes, although it is more prevalent in Australian programmes. Specific examples of educational opportunities (courses, projects, extracurricular activities, research experiences) that integrate complex systems study are described in the full paper. This study is currently limited a small sample size within two countries, but it would be very useful to expand the study to a larger population and to include European sites to gain a fuller picture of the state of holistic, systems thinking in higher education.  相似文献   

An international collaborative investigation of beginning seventh grade students' understandings of scientific inquiry: Establishing a baseline     

Judith Lederman  Norman Lederman  Selina Bartels  Juan Jimenez  Mark Akubo  Shereen Aly  Chengcheng Bao  Estelle Blanquet  Ron Blonder  Mariana Bologna Soares de Andrade  Catherine Buntting  Mustafa Cakir  Heba EL-Deghaidy  Ahmed ElZorkani  Estelle Gaigher  Shuchen Guo  Arvi Hakanen  Soraya Hamed Al-Lal  Cigdem Han-Tosunoglu  Annemarie Hattingh  Anne Hume  Serhat Irez  Gillian Kay  Ozgur Kivilcan Dogan  Kerstin Kremer  Pi-Chu Kuo  Jari Lavonen  Shu-Fen Lin  Cheng Liu  Enshan Liu  Shiang-Yao Liu  Bin Lv  Rachel Mamlok-Naaman  Christine McDonald  Irene Neumann  Yaozhen Pan  Eric Picholle  Ana Rivero García  Carl-Johan Rundgren  David Santibáñez-Gómez  Kathy Saunders  Renee Schwartz  Frauke Voitle  Jakob von Gyllenpalm  Fangbing Wei  Jocelyn Wishart  Zhifeng Wu  Huang Xiao  Yalcin Yalaki  Qiaoxue Zhou 《科学教学研究杂志》2019,56(4):486-515

Although understandings of scientific inquiry (as opposed to conducting inquiry) are included in science education reform documents around the world, little is known about what students have learned about inquiry during their elementary school years. This is partially due to the lack of any assessment instrument to measure understandings about scientific inquiry. However, a valid and reliable assessment has recently been developed and published, Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI; Lederman et al. [2014], Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65–83). The purpose of this large-scale international project was to collect the first baseline data on what beginning middle school students have learned about scientific inquiry during their elementary school years. Eighteen countries/regions spanning six continents including 2,634 students participated in the study. The participating countries/regions were: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mainland China, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. In many countries, science is not formally taught until middle school, which is the rationale for choosing seventh grade students for this investigation. This baseline data will simultaneously provide information on what, if anything, students learn about inquiry in elementary school, as well as their beginning knowledge as they enter secondary school. It is important to note that collecting data from all of the approximately 200 countries globally was not humanly possible, and it was also not possible to collect data from every region of each country. The results overwhelmingly show that students around the world at the beginning of grade seven have very little understandings about scientific inquiry. Some countries do show reasonable understandings in certain aspects but the overall picture of understandings of scientific inquiry is not what is hoped for after completing 6 years of elementary education in any country.  相似文献   

Library Anxiety among Undergraduate Students: A Comparative Study on Egypt and Saudi Arabia     

Ahmed Maher Khafaga Shehata  Mohammed Fathy Mahmoud Elgllab 《The Journal of Academic Librarianship》2019,45(4):386-393

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study of library anxiety among a group of Arab students in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The paper also investigated the factors that affect the students' level of anxiety while using academic libraries. The study tried to compare the difference in the level of anxiety in the two countries using a scale (LLPB) developed by the researchers which fit the culture in the Arab region. The study adopted a mixed methods approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with several students in Saudi Arabia and Egypt to determine the main factors that lead to having a level of anxiety in the libraries. In the second stage, a questionnaire was sent to students to measure what factors have a greater impact on the level of anxiety. The data showed that Egyptian students are more anxious about using the libraries than the Saudi students. The results also indicated that there is a need to train students on how to use the libraries and also change students' perception regarding the library to reduce the level of anxiety. This study was conducted in Egypt and Saudi Arabia the level of library anxiety and the factors that may affect the students may vary in other countries.  相似文献   

Teachers attending to students’ mathematical reasoning: lessons from an after-school research program     

John M. Francisco  Carolyn A. Maher 《Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education》2011,14(1):49-66

There is a documented need for more opportunities for teachers to learn about students’ mathematical reasoning. This article reports on the experiences of a group of elementary and middle school mathematics teachers who participated as interns in an after-school, classroom-based research project on the development of mathematical ideas involving middle-grade students from an urban, low-income, minority community in the United States. For 1 year, the teachers observed the students working on well-defined mathematical investigations that provided a context for the students’ formation of particular mathematical ideas and different forms of reasoning in several mathematical content strands. The article describes insights into students’ mathematical reasoning that the teachers were able to gain from their observations of the students’ mathematical activity. The purpose is to show that teachers’ observations of students’ mathematical activity in research sessions on students’ development of mathematical ideas can provide opportunities for teachers to learn about students’ mathematical reasoning.  相似文献   

Novel insights into views towards H1N1 during the 2009 Pandemic: a thematic analysis of Twitter data     

Wasim Ahmed  Peter A. Bath  Laura Sbaffi  Gianluca Demartini 《Health information and libraries journal》2019,36(1):60-72

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