The Effects of the Laboratory on College Students\u27 Understanding of Evolution: Implications for Conceptual Change.

This study investigated eighty junior and senior college students\u27 understanding of evolutionary biology concepts in lecture-only and lecture-laboratory settings. The evolution lab stressed the processes of evolution, and involved simulations, experiments, discussions, report writing, and reading. Test scores do not reveal everything about the actual process of learning in the laboratory. This study examined conceptual change patterns over a period of one semester using in-depth interviews with eight participants. The study revealed that the lecture-laboratory group performed better than the lecture-only group on certain shared items on the objective examination. The interview participants showed various patterns of conceptual change; that is, holistic (wholesale and cascade), fragmented, and dual constructions. Dual constructions and wholesale conceptual changes were the most common types of conceptual change patterns observed. Laboratory work in evolution allowed students to grapple with their alternative conceptions for abstract evolutionary concepts. They made use of the opportunities for cognitive conflict provided by the lab sessions. Some students adhered to their initial alternative conceptions which constrained the provision of scientific explanations for the biological problems. Examples of alternative conceptions are a young earth, rejection of macroevolution, and Lamarckian conceptions. The belief system of one student strongly influenced her retention of alternative conceptions, although she had done the laboratory course. However, two other students (one a lecture-lab participant) who held similar religious beliefs were able to develop a better understanding of evolution. Strong religious beliefs do not always preclude a good understanding of evolution. This study revealed a direct, positive relationship between students\u27 understanding of evolutionary concepts and their understanding of the nature of science. The observation was true for both lecture-only and lecture-lab groups

Inducting BEd Hons students into a research culture and the world of research: the case of a research methods course in the BEd Hons programme

It has become a policy imperative that the training of future researchers in Education should start at the Honours level. This training presents particular challenges as students entering the Bachelor of Education Honours (BEd Hons) programme have diverse professional backgrounds and personal motivations for pursuing the programme. Moreover, the majority of the students have fairly substantial experience in schools, one of the primary empirical sites for educational research. This diverse student profile yields several challenges in relation to the teaching of a Research Methods course. In this article, the authors reflect on their experiences of offering a BEd Hons course to induct students into research against the traditional, literature-renditioned components which comprise the practice of research in the Social Sciences. Working with the notions of critical aspects and encounters, the authors found that students experience a tension between their desire to solve their identified research problems in a common-sense way and a teaching interaction that moves them to an abstract/theoretical level. In light of this, the authors identify that students experience difficulty with shifting their strong beliefs about knowing the answers (in terms of their research), to notions of doubt. Each of these beliefs marks different academic cultures that respectively refer to, on the one hand, a teaching practice-supervisor and, on the other, a participant observer inquirer. The depth and richness of their experiences in the former tends to constrain the transition from predetermined answers to a curiosity driven mode.Department of HE and Training approved lis

Factors influencing the in-service programmes: Case study of teachers with learner-centred strategies in Blue Watersi setting

Key policies on teacher development emphasise the necessity of a teaching force that is competent to apply learner-centred practices. Barriers to learning, like poverty, present huge classroom challenges and have implications for in-service programmes intended to develop learner-centred practices. This study endeavoured to determine factors that influenced the effective implementation of in-service programmes to assist teachers with learner-centred teaching in the Blue Waters area of the Western Cape. It was anticipated that identifying these factors would assist teachers in poverty-stricken schools in an area like Blue Waters to effectively deal with poverty-related challenges of individual learners. A qualitative case study approach was applied with convenience and purposive sampling. Semi-structured interviews and a document study were used as tools to collect data. The participants of this study consisted of one principal, one social worker, and one district officer from the Western Cape Education Department (WCED). Qualitative data was analysed through thematic analysis. The competencies of teachers, Department of Education (DoE) and Department of Basic Education (DBE) policy intentions, socio-economic issues, and the types of in-service development programmes were revealed as factors inhibiting the In-Service Development Programmes at schools. This study recommended that the application of this strategy needed the holistic development of teaching skills at schools in Blue Waters.Keywords: barriers to learning; in-service programmes; learner-centred strategie

Factors influencing the in-service programmes: Case study of teachers with learner-centred strategies in Blue Waters setting

Key policies on teacher development emphasise the necessity of a teaching force that is competent to apply learner-centred practices. Barriers to learning, like poverty, present huge classroom challenges and have implications for in-service programmes intended to develop learner-centred practices. This study endeavoured to determine factors that influenced the effective implementation of in-service programmes to assist teachers with learner-centred teaching in the Blue Waters area of the Western Cape. It was anticipated that identifying these factors would assist teachers in poverty-stricken schools in an area like Blue Waters to effectively deal with poverty-related challenges of individual learners. A qualitative case study approach was applied with convenience and purposive sampling. Semi-structured interviews and a document study were used as tools to collect data. The participants of this study consisted of one principal, one social worker, and one district officer from the Western Cape Education Department (WCED). Qualitative data was analysed through thematic analysis. The competencies of teachers, Department of Education (DoE) and Department of Basic Education (DBE) policy intentions, socio-economic issues, and the types of in-service development programmes were revealed as factors inhibiting the In-Service Development Programmes at schools. This study recommended that the application of this strategy needed the holistic development of teaching skills at schools in Blue Waters

Exploring childhood experiences and family contexts as risk factors for drug use in the lives of young drug users in the Western Cape, South Africa

The use of drugs amongst adolescents and youth has become a global phenomenon and South Africa is no exception. This paper aims to explore the familial contexts and childhood experiences leading up to the drug-taking pathways of young drug users. A qualitative approach was utilized to gather demographic from a purposive sample of 41 young (14–19 years) drug users, at five drug treatment centres in the Western Cape of South Africa. Additionally, participants could agree to participate in an in-depth interview or to provide a written life history account. A thematic data analysis was applied, and the results uncovered a range of family-related risk factors such as family structure (single motherhood and absent fatherhood), and other negative family functioning and practices such as troubled parent-child relationships, poor family communication/interactions, parental/family substance abuse, and conflict-ridden, stressful and often violent and abusive family situations. The findings suggest that prevention initiatives should focus on strengthening family functioning by reducing high conflict, stress, violent and abusive family situations, as well as aim to enhance the caregiver-child relationship. Prevention strategies should encourage live-in and non-live-in fathers to be actively involved in the lives of their children and should aim to reduce parental/caregiver substance abuse

Are They Really Similar? Satisfaction, Opinion, and Scholarly Activity of Black Faculty by Citizenship Status

Faculty workload is an important higher education issue because of its increasing demands on faculty time, mandates by institutional and external factors, and its relationship to job satisfaction. Specifically, how faculty perceive their workload can positively or negatively influence their job satisfaction. Current literature regarding faculty and workload has focused largely on workload models. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the workload of Black faculty members by citizenship status (U.S. citizens; citizens, foreign born; and non-citizens) based on satisfaction, opinion, and scholarly activity variables. Overall, the findings revealed that foreign born and non-citizens were similar in many of the variables studied and U.S. born citizens were very different than the other two citizenship groups. In spite of the belief of many researchers, the findings revealed that in many variables studied, the U.S. born Black faculty were less productive and their opinions and satisfaction differ than foreign-born and non-citizens. Also revealed in this study, but not surprising, was the fact that approximately half of Black faculty were not in a tenured track position and a very small number had tenure. The findings will assist higher education institutions in better understanding Black faculty, in addition to, assisting administrators and policymakers in providing support toward enhancing the productivity of these faculty

Rasch modelling of Mathematics and Science teachers’ preferences of real-life situations to be used in Mathematical Literacy

In order to ascertain the real-life situations that teachers, as stakeholders, would find suitable and appropriate to deal with in Mathematical Literacy (a compulsory subject for students who are not doing Mathematics at the Further Education and Training level of the South African education system), we embarked on a study known as the Relevance of School Mathematics Education (ROSME). The principle underpinning this article is that there are times when it is necessary to assess the functionality and quality of questionnaires used to ascertain affective domain issues. The study provides an analysis technique which is not affected by the sample of individuals completing a questionnaire, provided that the instrument meets particular requirements. It thus improves the rigour of measurement. Various statistics obtained in this study showed that the instrument used to determine the real-life situations which teachers prefer for Mathematical Literacy reasonably identifies this variable. However, it is cautioned that much more care needs to be exercised in construction of such instruments. The results also indicated the real-life situations which teachers most and least preferred to be included in Mathematical Literacy, providing useful information for policy-makers and textbook authors on contextual situations to be included in learning materials

Item difficulty analysis of a high-stakes mathematics examination using Rasch analysis: The case of sequences and series

The National Senior Certificate examination is the most important school examination in South Africa. Analysis of learners’ performance in Mathematics in this examination is normally carried out and presented in terms of the percentage of learners who succeeded in the different bands of achievement. In some cases item difficulties are presented – item refers to the subsection of each examination question. Very little attention is paid to other diagnostic statistics, such as the discrimination indices and item difficulties taking into consideration partial scores examinees achieve on items. In this article we report on a study that, in addition to the usual item difficulties, includes a discrimination index of item difficulties taking into account partial scores examinees achieved. The items, considered individually, are analysed in relation to the other items on the test. The focus is on the topic sequences and series and the data were obtained from a stratified sample of the marked scripts of the candidates who wrote the National Senior Certificate examination in Mathematics in November 2010. Rasch procedures were used for the analysis. The findings indicate that learners perform differently on subsections of topics, herein referred to as items, and that focusing on scores for full topics potentially mask these differences. Mathematical explanations are attempted to account for difficulties learners exhibit in these subsections, using a hierarchy of scale. The findings and our analysis indicate that a form of measurement-driven testing could have beneficial results for teaching. Also, for some items the difficulty obtained from the work of examinees runs counter to the commonly perceived wisdom that an examination ought to be structured in such a way that the less difficult items are at the start of a topic. An explanatory device anchored around the construct of ‘familiarity with problem types through repeated productive practice’ is used to account for the manifested hierarchy of difficulty of the items