Running head: SCIENTIFIC BELIEFS A Comparison of Students ’ Beliefs about School Science and Professional Science

Scientific Beliefs 1 This study examined how urban high school students ’ beliefs about the nature of professional science relate to their beliefs about school science. Two aspects of the nature of science were examined: the status of scientific knowledge and the purpose of experimentation. An open-ended questionnaire, Views of the Nature of Science (VNOS), was used to assess students ’ beliefs about these two aspects of professional science. Upon completion of a modeling activity, groups of students were interviewed about their views of the purpose of the activity, the status of the knowledge they gained, and how their work related to scientists ’ work. Students ’ responses to the interview questions were examined in relation to their responses to VNOS. Students saw the purpose of their school activity as similar to scientists ’ work, but expressed differences between the status of knowledge across the two contexts. These findings are discussed with respect to the coherence of epistemological beliefs, and how epistemologies of science may be best studie

From Prototype to Deployable System: Framing the Adoption of Digital Library Services

The Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype Project (ADEPT) is a 5-year (1999-2004) effort, with a goal of developing effective models for implementing digital libraries in undergraduate instruction. The ADEPT team has created a digital learning environment (DLE) that adds educational value to a digital library by offering a suite of services for teaching. Encouraged by the results of implementations in undergraduate geography classrooms, the team now shifts its focus from experimental prototype to deployable system. Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theories are used as frameworks for analyzing this complex transition. Recommendations for lowering the barriers to adoption related to complexity, trialability, and observability include the prioritization of development efforts focused on stabilizing the system, the creation of documentation and an online demonstration, and anonymous logins to the system. To increase perceived relative advantage, existing technical and copyright issues in integrating the Alexandria Digital Library must be overcome. To increase compatibility, the speed at which pedagogical change is achieved must be rethought. Finally, recruitment efforts should focus on innovators and early adopters before moving on to early majority, late majority, or laggard adopters

Effects of explanation support on learning genetics

This study examined the effects that different kinds of technology-based representational tools have on students’ genetics learning. One form of tool represented phenomenological features of genetics – genes, pedigrees, and so on – and were embedded in a simulations-based software program. and another tool provided discursive representation to support students ’ construction of explanations. In a quasi-experimental study, students completed a 3-week unit on genetics. Students in one condition learned genetics using only the phenomenological tool and exploring simulations of population level genetic phenomena; students in a second condition used this same tool for the same activities and used a word processor to write explanations of events that occurred in the simulations; and students in a third condition used the phenomenological tool to complete the same activities, and wrote explanations of the simulations using the discursive tool. Pre- and post-assessments of students ’ understanding of basic genetics concepts showed no differences among conditions. A post-test explanation task, however, showed that students who had learned genetics with explicit, discursive support for explanation construction were significantly more likely to correctly apply genetics concepts to explain a specific problem than students who learned genetics without explanation construction supports. We argue that students ’ efforts to explain provided a context for organizing genetics ideas into a coherent conceptual framework, and that the discursive representations provided key features o

Student Beliefs about Professional and School Science

This study examined how urban high school students beliefs about the nature of professional science relate to their beliefs about school science, with particular focus on ideas about the purpose of experimentation and factors influencing knowledge change. A published questionnaire (VNOS, Lederman et al., 2002) was used to assess students’¡Ç beliefs about professional science, and groups of students were interviewed about an artifact they created from a modeling activity. The interview asked about their perceptions of the purpose of the activity, its relation to experimentation to knowledge change, and to professional scientists work. Analytic themes were developed to characterize students’¡Ç responses to interview questions and VNOS items. There are both differences and similarities between students’¡Ç responses in both contexts. Students seemed to recognize their activity as like what scientists would do, and understood it as a modeling task. Yet, students seemed to have few resources to draw upon to consider the nature of experimentation in either their own school work or in professional scientific work..

Learning Plant Adaptation in Middle School

This poster reports findings from a pilot study of a preliminary version of a CENS middle school inquiry module. The purpose of the pilot was to elicit students’ conceptions of plant evolution, especially leaf structure-function relationships in different environments. Pre-tests of students’ knowledge about plants and plant evolution confirmed our expectations that they lacked knowledge about leaf structure and function and about plant evolution. Post-tests, following approximately 13 hours of instruction, showed significant learning about leaf structure and function, but not plant evolution. Also, students performed better on short-answer questions on a post-test than on an essay that demanded they use conceptual knowledge to explain plant adaptation across environments. These results imply that a major design effort for CENS educational materials must be to help students integrate factual knowledge into coherent conceptual frameworks

CENSing the Environment Middle and High School Students Learning

Students face several challenges when trying to make sense of data from sensor networks. The Sensing the Environment Inquiry Module was developed to help students learn about adaptation by investigating ecological data from a local sensor network. Sixty-one students from three Los Angeles-area schools piloted the inquiry unit in Spring 2004. Students at all three schools made significant learning gains

CENSing the Environment Middle and High School Students Learning

Students face several challenges when trying to make sense of data from sensor networks. The Sensing the Environment Inquiry Module was developed to help students learn about adaptation by investigating ecological data from a local sensor network. Sixty-one students from three Los Angeles-area schools piloted the inquiry unit in Spring 2004. Students at all three schools made significant learning gains

Age and frailty are independently associated with increased COVID-19 mortality and increased care needs in survivors: results of an international multi-centre study

Introduction: Increased mortality has been demonstrated in older adults with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but the effect of frailty has been unclear. Methods: This multi-centre cohort study involved patients aged 18 years and older hospitalised with COVID-19, using routinely collected data. We used Cox regression analysis to assess the impact of age, frailty and delirium on the risk of inpatient mortality, adjusting for sex, illness severity, inflammation and co-morbidities. We used ordinal logistic regression analysis to assess the impact of age, Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) and delirium on risk of increased care requirements on discharge, adjusting for the same variables. Results: Data from 5,711 patients from 55 hospitals in 12 countries were included (median age 74, interquartile range [IQR] 54–83; 55.2% male). The risk of death increased independently with increasing age (>80 versus 18–49: hazard ratio [HR] 3.57, confidence interval [CI] 2.54–5.02), frailty (CFS 8 versus 1–3: HR 3.03, CI 2.29–4.00) inflammation, renal disease, cardiovascular disease and cancer, but not delirium. Age, frailty (CFS 7 versus 1–3: odds ratio 7.00, CI 5.27–9.32), delirium, dementia and mental health diagnoses were all associated with increased risk of higher care needs on discharge. The likelihood of adverse outcomes increased across all grades of CFS from 4 to 9. Conclusion: Age and frailty are independently associated with adverse outcomes in COVID-19. Risk of increased care needs was also increased in survivors of COVID-19 with frailty or older age.</p