101 research outputs found
A subjective refraction procedure for intellectually disadvantaged patients
A subjective refraction procedure for intellectually disadvantaged patients plus instructions to parent/teachers
Female senior secondary physics students’ engagement in science: a qualitative study of constructive influences
Background: Prompted by fewer females compared to males enrolling in physics and advanced mathematics at both secondary and university levels, our research investigated the views and experiences of female students currently studying upper secondary school physics. We interviewed 18 female students about influences they considered important to their own science education, interest in science, and future science-related aspirations. Our purpose was to identify the experiences that these students most strongly associated with the generation and maintenance of their engagement in science, particularly represented in this research by their enrolment in upper secondary physics.
Results: The research team used a systematic, iterative process to identify the main themes in the transcribed interview data. We identified the influence each girl reported as the strongest (ranked first). We also combined all influences that the participants had nominated, regardless of their ranking, to further examine all factors participants suggested as influential in their sustained engagement in school science (represented by their decision to study upper secondary physics). Systematic analysis of the interview data confirms that the influences on these females’ choices to study physics at upper secondary originate from a combination of their teachers, their school’s science culture, members of their family, the participants themselves and their peers.
Conclusions: The interviews highlighted the idiographic complexities in understanding the wide range of important influences on these students studying physics at upper secondary school and their engagement in science. The unique contribution of this work is giving voice to the participants and reflecting on what these high achieving females have to say about the influential factors in their decisions to pursue science. Supportive teachers and the school science culture play essential roles, and other cultural and/or social factors such as family members and peers are identified as important. References to the culture and expectations of the school, family holidays, and conversations with siblings are support factors that seem to interact and overlap. At the same time, the importance of policy-amenable factors such as competent and caring science teachers, and science-supportive school cultures should be emphasised and encouraged
The Relations and Role of Social Competencies and Belonging with Math and Science Interest and Efficacy for Adolescents in Informal STEM Programs
Understanding the influence of race/Ethnicity, gender, and class on inequalities in academic and non-academic outcomes among eighth-grade students: findings from an intersectionality approach
Socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and gender inequalities in academic achievement have been widely reported in the US, but how these three axes of inequality intersect to determine academic and non-academic outcomes among school-aged children is not well understood. Using data from the US Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten (ECLS-K; N = 10,115), we apply an intersectionality approach to examine inequalities across eighth-grade outcomes at the intersection of six racial/ethnic and gender groups (Latino girls and boys, Black girls and boys, and White girls and boys) and four classes of socioeconomic advantage/disadvantage. Results of mixture models show large inequalities in socioemotional outcomes (internalizing behavior, locus of control, and self-concept) across classes of advantage/disadvantage. Within classes of advantage/disadvantage, racial/ethnic and gender inequalities are predominantly found in the most advantaged class, where Black boys and girls, and Latina girls, underperform White boys in academic assessments, but not in socioemotional outcomes. In these latter outcomes, Black boys and girls perform better than White boys. Latino boys show small differences as compared to White boys, mainly in science assessments. The contrasting outcomes between racial/ethnic and gender minorities in self-assessment and socioemotional outcomes, as compared to standardized assessments, highlight the detrimental effect that intersecting racial/ethnic and gender discrimination have in patterning academic outcomes that predict success in adult life. Interventions to eliminate achievement gaps cannot fully succeed as long as social stratification caused by gender and racial discrimination is not addressed
Who Believes in Me? The Effect of Student-Teacher Demographic Match on Teacher Expectations
Teachers are an important source of information for traditionally disadvantaged students. However, little is known about how teachers form expectations and whether they are systematically biased. We investigate whether student-teacher demographic mismatch affects high school teachers’ expectations for students’ educational attainment. Using a student fixed effects strategy that exploits expectations data from two teachers per student, we find that non-black teachers of black students have significantly lower expectations than do black teachers. These effects are larger for black male students and math teachers. Our findings add to a growing literature on the role of limited information in perpetuating educational attainment gaps
STEAM and Educational Robotics: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Robotics in Early Childhood and Primary Education
Abstract. In early childhood and elementary educational contexts, there is an increasing need to support the development of interdisciplinary skills such as creativity, digital literacy and critical thinking. Educational robotics can play a relevant role in this process, by providing contexts that involve design, construction and imagination. The STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) approach offers a paradigm, which, by integrating educational robotics with scientific, digital and artistic perspectives, helps to undermine existing racial and gender inequality in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and STEAM-related contexts. Some relevant experiences regarding the possibility to combine these fields in educational contexts show promising results. By discussing the most relevant difficulties related to the development of curricula where educational robotics finds a relevant place, this paper argues that the use of robotics as experimented with in the Reggio Emilia Approach allows to overstep most of the difficulties reported. Furthermore, it is argued that in order to be more effective, educational robotics might be considered by teachers not as a subject to teach by providing instructions but, instead, as a medium to allow children to explore the affordances of digital technologies in playful learning environments. Some practical examples of this perspective are reported and discussed in the final part of the paper
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