Variability analysis for effectiveness and improvement in classrooms and schools in upper secondary education in Slovenia: Assessment of/for Learning Analytic Tool     

Darko Zupanc  Matjaž Urank 《School Effectiveness & School Improvement》2013,24(1):89-122

From 1995, data on students' achievement in schools (i.e., teacher's grades) and all data on achievement in the 5-subject group certificate – the Matura exam – have been systematically gathered for the entire yearly cohort of students in upper secondary education in Slovenia. This paper describes an on-line data selection system and data analysis tool designed for national subject testing committees, schools, and teachers as feedback for analyses of effectiveness, for the improvement of teaching in the classroom and for better learning. The use of data to influence teacher planning of future instructional activities for new groups of students (or for adjustment of policies) can in the long run lead to systematic improvement. This might be considered a secondary level of formative assessment – a key step in a continuous PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) process to establish and assure the quality of education.  相似文献   

High School Students’ Attitudes Towards Spiders: A cross‐cultural comparison     

Pavol Prokop  Andrea Tolarovičová  Anne M. Camerik  Viera Peterková 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(12):1665-1688

Spiders are traditionally considered to be among the least popular of animals. Current evidence suggests that a negative attitude towards spiders could be influenced by both cultural and evolutionary pressures. Some researchers suggest that science education activities could positively influence students’ perceptions of spiders. Their evidence is, however, ambivalent. Using a five‐point score Likert‐type questionnaire in which the items were developed in a similar way to four of Kellert’s categories of attitude (scientistic, negativistic, naturalistic, and ecologistic) towards invertebrates, we compared the level of knowledge of and attitudes towards spiders of high school students from two countries, Slovakia (n = 354) and South Africa (n = 382). The students represented different cultures and followed dissimilar science education curricula. Only among the Slovakian students there was a statistically significant but low correlation between knowledge and attitude (r = 0.30). The South African students scored higher in the categories of scientistic, naturalistic, and ecologistic attitudes. Comparison of attitude towards spiders of indigenous Africans from coeducational Catholic schools revealed that South African students have greater fear of spiders than Slovakian students, supporting the biological preparedness hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts a greater fear of spiders in South Africa than in Europe since several South African spiders possess venoms that are dangerous to humans. The results of this study are discussed from science education, cultural, and evolutionary perspectives.  相似文献   

The Influence of 16‐year‐old Students’ Gender,Mental Abilities,and Motivation on their Reading and Drawing Submicrorepresentations Achievements     

Iztok Devetak  Saša Aleksij Glažar 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(12):1561-1593

Submicrorepresentations (SMRs) are a powerful tool for identifying misconceptions of chemical concepts and for generating proper mental models of chemical phenomena in students’ long‐term memory during chemical education. The main purpose of the study was to determine which independent variables (gender, formal reasoning abilities, visualization abilities, and intrinsic motivation for learning chemistry) have the maximum influence on students’ reading and drawing SMRs. A total of 386 secondary school students (aged 16.3 years) participated in the study. The instruments used in the study were: test of Chemical Knowledge, Test of Logical Thinking, two tests of visualization abilities Patterns and Rotations, and questionnaire on Intrinsic Motivation for Learning Science. The results show moderate, but statistically significant correlations between students’ intrinsic motivation, formal reasoning abilities and chemical knowledge at submicroscopic level based on reading and drawing SMRs. Visualization abilities are not statistically significantly correlated with students’ success on items that comprise reading or drawing SMRs. It can be also concluded that there is a statistically significant difference between male and female students in solving problems that include reading or drawing SMRs. Based on these statistical results and content analysis of the sample problems, several educational strategies can be implemented for students to develop adequate mental models of chemical concepts on all three levels of representations.  相似文献   

The overall knowledge of genetics in Serbian speech and language pathologists     

Ivana Bogavac  Marijana Rakonjac  Ljiljana Jeličić  Silvana Punišić  Miško Subotić 《欧洲特需教育杂志》2013,28(4):538-545

ABSTRACT

An increase in the number of children with speech–language pathology also having a genetic disorder imposes the need for speech and language pathologists (SLPs) to have sufficient knowledge about genetic basis of speech–language disorders. Research aim was to estimate in Serbian SLPs different aspects of theoretical and practical knowledge about intercorrelation of genetics and speech and language pathology and to compare obtained results with the results of SLPs in the United States. The questionnaire from Tramontana’s study was used in our study. Comparison of the results that obtained in our study with those in Tramontana’s study has shown that our study respondents have higher General Knowledge Index (78.6%: 66.2%), higher mean confidence summary score (22.2: 16.7) and higher mean score of ‘overall’ attitudes about genetics and its relation with communication disorders (20.8: 13.6). Differences which emerge from educational programmes, educational levels and practical experience in the observed groups are indicated as possible causes of differences in the obtained results. On the basis of the obtained results, it may be concluded that it is necessary to elevate SLPs’ level of general knowledge about genetics and to acquire their knowledge through clinical practice.  相似文献   

Development and Initial Psychometric Assessment of the Plant Attitude Questionnaire   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Jana Fančovičová  Pavol Prokop 《Journal of Science Education and Technology》2010,19(5):415-421

Plants are integral parts of ecosystems which determine life on Earth. People’s attitudes toward them are however, largely overlooked. Here we present initial psychometric assessment of self-constructed Plant Attitude Scale (PAS) that was administered to a sample of 310 Slovakian students living in rural areas aged 10–15 years. The final version of PAS consists from 29 Likert-scale items that were loaded to four distinct dimensions (Interest, Importance, Urban trees and Utilization). Mean scores revealed that Slovakian students lack positive attitudes toward plants and that gender had no effect on their mean attitude scores. Living in a family with a garden was associated with a more positive attitude toward plants. Further correlative research on diverse samples containing urban children and experimental research examining the impact of gardening in schools on student attitudes toward plants is required.  相似文献   

Designing and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Physlet-Based Learning Materials in Supporting Conceptual Learning in Secondary School Physics   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

Simon Ülen  Branka Čagran  Mitja Slavinec  Ivan Gerlič 《Journal of Science Education and Technology》2014,23(5):658-667

Many educational researchers have investigated how best to support conceptual learning in science education. In this study, the aim was to design learning materials using Physlets, small computer simulations, and to evaluate the effectiveness of these materials in supporting conceptual learning in secondary school physics. Students were taught in two different physics courses (conditions): one group of students (n = 40) was taught using Physlet-based learning materials, and the other (n = 40) was taught using expository instruction. To evaluate the designed materials, we assessed students’ thinking skills in relation to physics after the course and analyzed the results using an independent t test, multiple regression analyses, and one-way analysis of covariance. The results showed better thinking skills among students in the experimental group and supported a clear relationship between the physics course using Physlet-based materials and this improvement (p < 0.05). These results indicate that properly designed Physlet-based materials can effectively support conceptual learning.  相似文献   

Sliding manifold design for linear systems with unmatched disturbances     

Boban Veselić  Branislava Draženović  Čedomir Milosavljević 《Journal of The Franklin Institute》2014

This paper offers an efficient sliding manifold design method that minimizes the impact of unmatched disturbances onto SM dynamics and system accuracy. System sensitivity upon unmatched constant or slowly varying external disturbance vector is evaluated by the steady-state dependent criterion function. An infinite set of sliding manifolds that minimize the chosen optimization criterion is determined and a way of selecting a manifold out of that set that provides adopted SM dynamics is suggested. The proposed approach has been demonstrated on numerical examples and verified by simulations.  相似文献   

Peer mediation: citizenship and social inclusion revisited     

Katja Košir  Sonja Pečjak 《Educational research; a review for teachers and all concerned with progress in education》2013,55(1):127-144

In sociometric research tradition, popularity is defined as the degree to which children are liked or accepted by their peers. However, research indicates that two definitions of popular students should be distinguished: (1) popular students as those students who are well liked by many and disliked by few peers, and (2) popular students as those students who are described as popular by their peers. The main purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between sociometric and peer perceived popularity in Slovenian students of different grades of elementary and secondary school. Additionally, the age differences in the relationship between sociometric and peer perceived popularity were examined. Another purpose of the study was to investigate the differential relationships between concepts of popularity and some students' characteristics. The participants were 321 boys and 329 girls who ranged from the 5th grade of elementary school (the mean age 11.04 years) to the 3rd grade of secondary school (the mean age 17.02 years). The results of this study confirm previous findings that peer perceived popularity is a construct that is distinct from sociometric popularity. There are some substantial differences in relations between indices of perceived popularity and sociometric indices between elementary school students and secondary school students—i.e. between early adolescents and middle to late adolescents. It seems that perceived popularity and sociometric popularity are rather similar constructs in elementary school students, whereas in secondary school students they become almost unrelated to each other. Based on these findings, the terminological issues are discussed and some conclusions are made.  相似文献   

Roma pupils’ identification with school in Slovenia and Serbia: case studies     

Sunčica Macura-Milovanović  Milanka Munda  Mojca Peček 《Educational studies》2013,39(5):483-502

The research presented in this paper aims to challenge the belief held by some education professionals that Roma pupils do not value education. The research sample included groups of Roma pupils from two countries (Slovenia and Serbia) and from different socio-economic backgrounds. The results suggest that the majority of the pupils are aware of the importance of education. However, there are significant differences in their sense of identification with school. Roma pupils from families whose socio-economic background is comparable to that of the majority population are more appreciative of educational success, feel more accepted by teachers and classmates and are better able to connect education with their own lives. Roma pupils from families of lower socio-economic background associate school with failure, discrimination and rejection by teachers and classmates. Barriers to these pupils’ learning and social participation may be related to their tendency to drop out of the compulsory education.  相似文献   

Teachers on perceived traits and academic achievements of regular pupils and pupils with special needs in mainstream primary schools     

Irena Lesar  Ivan Čuk  Mojca Peček 《Teachers and Teaching》2013,19(3):358-374

When looking for answers to the question of academic (non)achievement of regular pupils and pupils with special needs, it is necessary to take into account the extraordinary complexity of factors, ranging from psychological across instructional to home environment variables. The academic achievement is not only a reflection of the pupil’s knowledge, but is also influenced by the pupil’s behaviour, the teacher’s expectations and finally the relationship established between the teacher and the pupil. This paper contributes answers to the question which of the traits, perceived by teachers, explain the academic achievements of regular pupils and pupils with special needs. Our analysis shows that perceived traits that explain the academic achievement of regular pupils refer to academic as well as social behaviour, disruptive behaviour and self-regulatory behaviour; therefore, they cover all areas of perceived traits we studied. In pupils with special needs as a whole and in particular groups of pupils with special needs, the factor which presents disruptive social behaviour proved as insignificant, which consequently means that the academic achievement of pupils with special needs depends more on academic and self-regulatory behaviour, task activity and social inclusion.  相似文献