An exploration of attitudes towards modern biotechnology: a study among Dutch secondary school students

Modern biotechnology will have a large impact on society and requires informed decision-making and critical attitudes toward biotechnology among the public. This study aims to explore these attitudes in secondary education. For this purpose, a questionnaire was constructed according to the general tripartite theory of attitudes. 574 Dutch secondary school students completed the questionnaire. Based on principal component analyses, several distinct and independent cognitive, affective, and behavioural factors were found, demonstrating that attitudes towards biotechnology are a multi-component concept. In a cluster analysis on these factors, we found four interpretable clusters representing different groups of students. The four groups are labelled as 'confident supporter' (22%), 'not sure' (42%), 'concerned sceptic' (18%) and 'not for me' (17%). These results indicate that there is a diverse appraisal of modern biotechnology amongst secondary school students. Suggestions for educational interventions are made

Fortaleciendo la capacidad profesional para mejorar la escolarización del alumnado inmigrante. Una reflexión sobre las actividades de la red Sirius

Revista Electrónica Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 45-57Este documento describe las actividades en el área de la capacidad profesional llevada a cabo por la Red Europea Sirius en la Educación y la Migración. El artículo analiza mediante encuesta el estado de la técnica, tres revisiones por pares y una reunión de un día con los responsables políticos. Los resultados de estas actividades se describen y se combinan con una visión general de la literatura de investigación sobre la capacidad profesional de las escuelas urbanas. Cinco recomendaciones se dan sobre la base de esta comparación: el desarrollo de comunidades de aprendizaje profesional, mejorar el ambiente de enseñanza y aprendizaje con un enfoque en la diversidad, aumentar la experiencia en el tratamiento de la diversidad lingüística, y organizar "escuelas abiertas" con las relaciones de buena calidad con los padres y las comunidades. Es de esperar que la aplicación de estas cinco recomendaciones, adaptadas a su contexto nacional, mejorará la posición de la educación de los niños de origen inmigrante

Leaving College: A Gender Comparison in Male and Female-Dominated Programs

Women, on average, outnumber men and are more successful in higher education. A literature overview showed that these differences may be explained by gender differences in learner characteristics, by external factors and by institutional factors. This study aims to explain gender differences in higher education in more detail by focusing on one of the recent research findings in this area: the role of the numerical representation of men and women in course programs. What are gender differences in study success in male and female-dominated course programs, and what are gender differences in reasons for leaving these programs? The research questions were answered by analyzing Dutch census data and conducting a survey on students that have left college. Results showed that gender differences in retention scores and reasons for leaving were indeed related to the numerical representation of women and men in course programs. Leaving female-dominated programs seemed to be a different matter from leaving male-dominated programs

Education through fiction: acquiring opinion-forming skills in the context of genomics

This study examined the outcomes of a newly designed four-lesson science module on opinion-forming in the context of genomics in upper secondary education. The lesson plan aims to foster sixteen-year-old students’ opinion-forming skills in the context of genomics and to test the effect of the use of fiction in the module. The basic hypothesis tested in this study is whether fiction stimulates students to develop opinions with regard to socio-scientific issues. A quasi-experimental pre- and post-test design was used, involving two treatment groups and one control group. One of the experimental groups received a science module incorporating movie clips (i.e. the movie group). The other experimental group received the same science module, however, only news report clips were used (i.e. the news report group). Prior to and after the module, 266 secondary school students completed a questionnaire to test their opinion-forming skills. The results demonstrate that the science module had a significant positive effect on students’ opinion-forming skills and that the movie group improved their skills more compared to the news report group. It may be concluded that the use of fiction, to be more specific movie clips about genomics extracted from feature films, to introduce a socio-scientific issue in the classroom stimulates students to develop their opinion-forming skills

The definition and measurement of sense of belonging in higher education:A systematic literature review with a special focus on students’ ethnicity and generation status in higher education

Sense of belonging in higher education contributes to students' wellbeing and academic attainment. However, there is ambiguity about the definition and measurement of sense of belonging in higher education, and it is unclear how these definitions and measures are used in diverse student populations in terms of ethnicity and generation status in higher education. In this systematic review we investigated how students' sense of belonging in higher education is defined and measured and how this differs in studies addressing students' ethnicity or generation status in higher education. 89 quantitative, 55 qualitative, and 6 mixed method articles published between 2000 and 2021 were included, critically analyzed through an integrative approach, and their quality was appraised. Results revealed (a) a large variety in underlying concepts used to define of sense of belonging in higher education, including additional concepts from qualitative studies, (b) 52 separate used measures, and (c) misalignment between definitions and measures in quantitative studies. There was a substantial difference in cited definitions and used measures between studies that did and did not address students' ethnicity or generation status in higher education. Furthermore, from the findings it is implied to be explicit about the HE context in which sense of belonging is studied or focused on, alongside the deliberate inclusion of students’ representative intersecting identities.</p

Learning environment, interaction, sense of belonging and study success in ethnically diverse student groups

The purpose of this paper was to investigate a model for describing the relationships between the extent to which learning environments are activating and students' interaction with teachers and peers, sense of belonging, and study success. It was tested whether this model holds true for both ethnic minority students and ethnic majority students. A total of 523 students from four different universities completed a questionnaire. Structural equation modeling (Amos) was used to test the model. The model that best describes the relationships in the group of ethnic minority students (N = 145) was shown to be different than the model that best fits the group of majority students (N = 378). Ethnic minority students appeared to feel at home in their educational program if they had a good formal relationship with teachers and fellow students. Ethnic minority students' sense of belonging to the institution nevertheless did not contribute to their study progress. On the other hand, in majority students, informal relationships with fellow students were what led to a sense of belonging. In these students, the sense of belonging did further academic progress